Sacrificed
by Byakugan789
Summary: There are many ways to get to another world. Most of them involve some element of risk. A lot of them straight up involve dying. But one poorly chosen sacrifice can throw the world into chaos.
1. Chapter 1

file/d/1F3FGWjE-Qsvz56rwbIKHfN1rV7_auXC1/view

The world snapped into focus with the greatest of Ironies. I had died, surrounded on all sides by girls in the midst of wild sex. This should have been a crowning moment of awesome, the thing that dreams are made of. Instead... I am the victim of a genuine demonic sacrifice as part of a sorority orgy. Go fucking figure.

Literally.

The room where I stood, hovering over my own dead body was the epitome of plush. Deep red silks and memory foam cushions covered everything... except for the stone slab to which I had been tied with... is that budget twine from lowes? Oh god... kill me again. I'll admit, I'm not the buff chad bodybuilder type, by any stretch of the imagination, but I keep in shape, and that crap should have been easy for me to break.

Walking around my corpse I examined myself with a curious detachment and quickly found the source of my misfortune. A small portion of my skull is caved in, on the back. You couldn't easily tell, as it's mostly hidden by hair, but the blood and crater makes it stick out in odd ways.

That's not what killed me though, no, that's the rail thin African chick with a face like a pug sitting on me. Her head is thrown back with an expression I think is a snarl, maybe? At least I hope it is. Her hands, instead of bracing themselves on my pecs, are gripped around the hilt of a knife with a REALLY thick blade.

I try to punch her in the face with my ghostly fists but, as should be expected I suppose, i went straight through her. Her entire body shuddered and she almost fell off of me as one of her legs slipped, but the girl caught herself with the help of the blade sunk into my breastbone. With that done, she lifted herself a little and I closed my eyes, groaning and tried to ignore the fact that the action wasn't helping me in the slightest. With a heave of her thin arms, the girl began to saw and in short order there was a violent crack as my rib cage split open.

Tossing the bloody knife aside she plunged her hands into the incision and I got a good look at the runes on the blade as it clattered across the stone table. More cracks followed and there was a squishing sound as my murderer pulled my heart from my chest. But not quite... with a sucking sound the main arteries held it in place and she had to retrieve the blade to cut it free.

Sticking one of the veins to her mouth, the girl sucked on the ventricle and began to change. Rapidly. Her body filled out as muscles rippled under flesh where there had been nothing worth remarking on before. Her hips, already wide, flared as padding grew in and her bust expanded to match, giving her an amazon warrior level figure. The face, while spattered liberally with blood, began to change as well, though much more subtly. It remained recognizably as her, but rapidly became what one could call cute. She'd probably be a knockout now, if she traded the blood for a bit of makeup.

As she passed off my heart to another of the girls in the room who began to undergo the same transformation I stood back and wracked my brain for where I might possibly have met any of these girls before. Honestly I was drawing a blank. I forwent parties for the computer-lab and only drank occasionally with friends. I'd had a string of girlfriends, no mistake, but I'd mostly picked them up at the Gym as part of my stonewrought determination to not repeat my low status highschool experience.

_She was one of the gym bunnies__._ a voice growled into my ear. Stiffening in shock I turned right slowly to see the red skin and beard of... a goat? No, not quite, it was anthropomorphized. _She was furious that your eyes ghosted right over her as though she were a piece of weight equipment. _The figure continued conversationally. _Continue this for almost a year and a half and add in some spectacularly bad grades, she became resentful. And desperate._

I nodded slowly. _So, ah, Baphomet, right? What happens now?_

The creature snorted. _I am not he, my form now is more an...expression of your expectations. An image your mind can handle. As for what happens now, I take your soul, bind the souls of each girl who perfects herself drinking __**Vitae**__and move on to the next stinking mud-ball. You ready? Or will I have to drag you?_

I nodded slowly. _Do me a favor?_

The devil stared at me for a split second before breaking out in to belly laughs. This went on for a few moments before it caught my eye again and stopped abruptly. _Wait, you're serious? Alright, consider me amused. Ask, and I might even grant your request._

Setting my shoulders I stare into the things eyes and do my best not to let the crushing despair creep into my gaze. _When you finally reel in their souls and pen them in your stable? Make it hurt. It may have just been games to everyone else, but I was going to build __**worlds...**__ now?_I shrugged helplessly.

The goat thing stared into me for what seemed like an eternity before looking around the room. Apparently he liked what he saw, because his face split into a wide grin and in a flash he was beside me, an arm over my shoulder. _You know what? I'm feeling generous. And bored, but don't underestimate the generosity. You wanted to make worlds? I want to watch you try. And hey, you seem to be __**excellent**__ harvest, _he explained waving to the room full of new supermodels.

With a snap of his thickly nailed fingers a stack of papers appear in his hands. _I grabbed this off the internet, look it over and make your selections. I'll be back in a second. Gotta secure my bounty before it skips out the door! __  
_  
I begin reading it slowly trying not to facepalm. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure game. Handed to me by and otherworldly force. It's as though my patron is a literal manifestation of Irony. Perhaps instead of the Knights Templar's Demon I should have been imagining Loki? Coyote? Kokopelli? I glance at the girl who killed me and reconsider. Anansi. Definitely Anansi.

Combing through the selections and my memories of Warcraft I make my choices. Laughing at options like Murderhobo, Comicbook Pretty and other in jokes, I marvel at the boost selections and craft an avatar who can easily take advantage of being more or less fucked in the ass. Quickly becoming the rival, or perhaps even replacement for Cho'Gall, I throw on Harem King and Comicbook for extra measure. If these girls can kill me for it, then I can sure as hell benefit from it.

_Well now... that's certainly an interesting set of selections. Don't think I'm not going to make you work for it though... __  
_  
I shrug, spreading my hands wide and hand him the stack of paper with my balance zeroed out. _Are you not entertained?_

_We'll see, boy_ the figure replied as he pushed me backwards into oblivion. _We shall see..._

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The world blurred and swirled in a mass of colors, wrongness and pain. I've no idea how long I stayed like that, hurtling through realities as my spirit transformed and gathered flesh around it once more, but when I could next make sense of things I was falling through the air above the blazing ruins of a gigantic city.

Around me Pale Orcs swarmed like locust over the bodies of pudgy ogre twice their height and eight times their mass. Shadowy auras radiated off of them and drank in the rainbow of magics the Ogre used to try and combat them while off in the distance explosions of emerald light shore off great chunks of buildings.

I had but seconds to get a look at my new self before I too was buried under a swarm of crawling, loping bodies. A muted rage suffused me and rather than trying to throw them off or use the magic that was now oozing its way into my mind, I began grabbing the Pale's heads in my fist and _crushing them_. Red and grey pulp oozed out of my fingers as tattoos glowed up and down my body. Rune-script I remembered, tattooed there by my better treated slaves. I certainly wouldn't have trusted a poorly treated one near my skin with a sharp implement and potentially deadly sludge needed to lock in complicated bands of Arcane MIGHT.

For a moment, my own memories fought with the new set trying to worm their way in and overwhelm me. Memories about the life of Thurm, the remarkably ugly Ogre magi who got by by out-witting all challengers. Son of a goat, they mocked me. Him. Arg! Draenai fucker, they accused. Twin self images warred in my head as I continued to methodically crush little Orc skulls in my meaty palms. By human standards, my new form is a fucking _hunk_. I'm Big Man Tyrone crossed with The Rock. By Ogre standards, my face is a mess, I'm a foot and a half too short, I have far too much hair, no second head and show my low status by lacking any noticeable fat, armor or jewelry.

In fact, if it weren't for a ragged skirt and belt, I'd be naked.

Noooot that the noble or his guards in this ally were fairing much better. Togas and jewelry mostly. Shaking my head I debate whether to help them or walk off. Reviewing my memories of WoW, this is Cho'Gall's invasion of Highmaul, literally days before the opening of the Dark Portal. On one hand, having allies means surviving longer. On the other, I took the trait Traitor lvl3, which means they're going to be sending a team of Elites after me. And here I am without my promised Ship or Magic weapon.

_Go to the Imperators rise..._I jerk at the whisper in my ear. _Hurry!_No, not a whisper, it's not actually a voice, it's more of a gut feeling, or intuition. This is probably the 'guided by elements' trait I selected.

_Alright then, I have a direction!_ Following the feeling I start off running.

"THURM! You no leave Hoshk like this! I die you no get pay!" I pause, as the words trigger a memory about how I'd agree to work upgrading the guy's wards against attacks by the Horde. It was in fact the reason why I was currently next to naked, most of my armor had been removed so that the enchanted items didn't interfere with the delicate casting, a common practice during artifice for people other than yourself, and it had all been buried under rubble alongside most of my tools when the building collapsed under a summoned infernal.

"All things die, friend. Stop fucking around with magic and crush them!" I roar over my shoulder and turn back to continue running. "The Void hungers and you're feeding it. Bite back!"

A fireball sails past my ear and I can smell the acrid sent of burning hair. Slapping the side of my head quickly, I curse at the small prickles of pain as fires go out. Damnit, I don't wanna be half bald!. I look over my shoulder again to see Hoshk crushing the skull of one Pale between two hands and glaring at me.

_No time to waste,_ I think idly, _let's go earn that trait_.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Ogres are, by nature, cowards and bullies. Abused by their progenitors the Orgren, and used as slave labor and the occasional Gron snack. They freed themselves not by rebelling and throwing off the Yolk of their brutish masters, but rather simply by running away. Eventually these escaped slaves of the Gron and Orgren were gathered together by the Arakoa who, having failed to set up trade relations with the stupid Orgren, hoped to encourage the slaves to rebel. This too failed for quite a while, until one Arakoa, Yonzi, hit upon the idea of teaching the Ogres Magic. His first student, Gog, learned quickly and became so powerful and arrogant that instead of challenging his masters as the Arakoa had hoped, he went straight for the Gron, where he killed more than a dozen of them and took their stone hearts as trophies.

To this day, and even in WoW, taking command of Ogres is as easy as finding their leader, beating the living shit out of him and presenting proof to the rest of the community. The King is the biggest and meanest ogre on the pile, and all others cower before his wrath and follow in awe at his strength. Which doesn't necessarily have much to do with the mind behind it.

As one can imagine, this leads to something of an interesting society. Intelligence is only respected as far as it allows you to pummel your rival more efficiently, or in the case of the Highmaul Nobility, genuinely turn him to chunky salsa with the intensity of your glare.

This was precisely what Cho'Gall was engaging in right now, with his void cursed Orc clan and recently gained Fel and Void magic abilities. He would take command of the Ogre city which threw him out and march them toward the Dark Portal for Exile and experimentation by Gui'Dan. History would repeat itself once more, and once on Azeroth most of the Ogres would flee the Horde, spreading across the face of the planet and founding dozens of radically different societies who's only common feature is The Mound.

By-And-Large, I couldn't care less about this. It would allow me relatively easy access to Azeroth, plausible deniability for why I wanted to go there, fulfill the [Target of the Alliance] trait without being TOO burdensome and if the Arcane Whispers were leading me to my ship and enchanted weapon, easily take care of my other [Targeted] traits without me having to do something deliberate to blunder into them.

No. The PROBLEM, was that the [Guided by Elements] trait was leading me straight to Cho'Gall and his apocalyptic fight with the Imperator.

God, I only hope it doesn't ask me to fight him and become king of the Ogres. Son of a Bitch is no joke.

As I ascend the tiers of the city, there are progressively fewer surrendering Ogres glaring at my for passing them by at the mercy of the Pale, and more dead ones whose flesh is being eaten as greedily as their powers and enchanted armor were. Grand towers lie strewn across spacious boulevards. Plentifully stocked pantries and hidden treasure hordes litter the rubble, being picked clean by wretched orcs like flies on a carcass. Immense wards pop like soap bubbles under the pressure of Fel Fire and Hungering Void auras.

And yet still I charge on.

Pale rush at me as I move, trying to cling on and slow me down so their fellows can join, but I have little clothing to hold onto and readily snap their bones rather than flail around in panic. And through it all, the soundless voice guides me. I avoid the worst of the dark magic hotspots without slowing pace, slip through ward keys as though I lived beneath them, and smack aside Pale in flight more often than I need to peel them off my flesh. Even in the depths of madness, I Am The Method.

And then, the 'voice' is gone. Before me is a Door, behind me, a narrow stairway that any Ogre would need to squeeze through. It was completely undecorated and obviously meant to be an escape tunnel of some sort. Taking a breather to weave a spell, I cast silence on the door and invisibility on myself. Pushing the door open slowly, I peek outside the door aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnddd, shit.

There's the Ogre of the Hour himself.

Cho'Gall is standing in the center of the room ahead of me, his back to the door I'm using. In front of him, taking his attention is Imperator Mar'Gok. The pair of two headed Ogres are focused solely on each other. Mar'Gok is pleading miserably for his life, while Cho gloats in an unhinged screechy voice and Gall binds Mar'Gok to his throne with chains of Shadow and Chaos, draining his magic and tearing him apart body and soul.

Casting Illusion on the door I just snuck in through and Silence on myself, I take a look around the room and instantly see what it is I'm supposed to be here for.

The Staff of the Grand Imperator lays abandoned behind Cho'Gall. Wordless, it calls to me, begging to be retrieved. To be used.

But there is yet a greater prize.

The Runstones of Grond. Grond the Worldbreaker. Forged from Draenor's greatest mountain by the Titan Agramar himself to unite the four elements with Arcane and strike down the choking Evergrowth. Cho'Gal intends to consume one of them and give the other to Gul'Dan in order to open the Dark Portal. Without it... wrinkly old orc would probably just have to add a few more sacrifices to the alter. He already has the Ata'mal Crystals to fuel the effort. And if it depletes them? What are a few less Naru between friends? Eh? Velen still has the one he's going to use to call the Exodar and Tempest Keep.

As the Imperator's stamina runs out and the great lump begins screaming fit to break windows, I make my move. Rushing up to the first Runestone, I snatch it from atop the pillar. Mar notices, but he's in far far too much pain to communicate that. Cho and Gall are too focused on avenging their wounded pride to pay any attention to anything else in the room and barely even twitches as I choke on the power contained within just ONE of the pair. Cho'Gall defeated Mar'Gok while he was channeling both of the monstrous artifacts, so I can't depend on the [Glutinous] overflow of power to save me. Reapplying Invisibility and conjuring a shield, I pour power into the two spells just so as to keep myself from bursting at the seams. That done, I channel more of the power into a haste spell and speed around the Twilight's Hammer Chieftain, snatching up the staff and setting the handgrip in my mouth. Completing the arc, I jump, the action assisted by a flash of violet energy which finally grabs the warlock's attention, and grab the other stone.

"NO! YOU CANNOT TAKE THEM!" "THE STONES ARE OURS, THE VOICES PROMISED!" "You know nothing of the power you meddle with, Thurm! It calls to us. We know! Its power will be ours!"

"Blow me!" I scream at them, and desperately wrack my brain for a way out of there. This would have been a good time to have allies, if for no other reason than to be meat shields for me to hide behind.

As though mere thought were suitable to perform the action, I am suddenly back in the ally where I had left Hoshk, having teleported there in an explosive nova of Arcane Power.

The good news is that I've escaped. Oh, and Hoshk is dead, so he can't hold it against me, lying there half eaten in a pool of his own blood.  
The _**BAD**_ news is I now know the result of choosing [Target of the Horde] and [Traitor lvl3].

Yeah, an elite team of assassins coming to retrieve these is going to be the least of my worries. Because I am officially burn the fuck out. My whole body hurts. waves of purple light ripple over my skin like a pond in a rainstorm and I feel as though every nerve in my body has been pulled out with tweeters and then_ set on_ _fire!_

Probably lucky not to be dead.

Spitting the Great Staff of the Imperator out of my mouth, I drop the stones to the cobbles and begin stripping my erstwhile employer of his and his guards Togas. Heavily wrapping the stones and Mar'Gok's staff in the cloth, I hang the two concealed artifacts from either side of the mighty weapon and cast Invisibility once more. The pain drives me to my knees and takes my breath away, but on the upside, I don't black out and the spell doesn't drop.

The walk through the city is **torture** at it's finest, but the intuition is back and subtly guides me through the city and towards the Harbor. Highmaul is a city on the sea, with the Imperator's rise being on a giant cliff overlooking the bay, but the fleet hasn't seen much use since it was used to evacuate the city when the Horde last invaded, 30 years ago, and Grommash Hellscream killed the last Imperator, ending the last attempt to restore their Empire. As such, the ships sit in the Harbor, rotting away, dusty and neglected. Ghost ships. Stumbling onto one of them, I make my way down into the depths of the Hull and hide behind a large pile or heavily rotting cargo, left there and never retrieved. Setting up wards around myself and the stones, etching runes into the wood and filling them with blood from my hands, I hide both the artifacts and myself from all sight.

The pain is excruciating, and this time, I DO black out.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

I wake up **Hungry**. My entire body is sore, and the hull in which I've been hiding is a lot more full of mold than I'd realized. To the point that during the night, a fair bit of it has started trying to grow on my tongue and cheeks, giving me the absolutely most rotten case of morning mouth you have ever imagined. More Zangar mold glitters and sparks from the rune circles I'd drawn last night to hide myself from Cho'Gall and up across my chest and arms where the gore of the previous day still clings to my flesh.

With a hacking growl, I clear my throat out like I'm preparing for a massive loogi and use the crud I cough up with rinse out the inside of my mouth. That done, and feeling foul, I spit a massive glob of green black sludge outside the circle of 'protection' and begin worrying about infection. New 'memories' from my 'life' as Thurm insist that Zangar mold is only very rarely poisonous, but it'll eat literally anything, living or dead that doesn't get rid of it properly. Conjuring pure water, as pure as I can get it for the acidic quality untainted water possess, I begin sucking down globes of the stuff and spitting again and again until I can no longer taste the foul fungus. That's no guarantee I've cleansed myself, but it's a start.

That bit of Hygiene done, I conjure more water and begin washing myself off, scrubbing vigorously. A wayward thought alters a symbol in my mind and the water I'm conjuring begins to steam. Waving my hand, I banish the dirty globes out a nearby sump drain. The next bitingly hot ball of water is used to rinse out my mouth again before being turned on the rotting mass before me.

That turns out to be a mistake.

While unable to simply find me, due to the power of the stones being pumped into my invisibility spell, that didn't mean Cho'Gall hadn't spent the time I've been asleep idle. As soon as the bubble of conjured water and force construct left my hiding spot the sound of skittering sounded on the deck of the ship. I only just had time to dispell it before a pale Poked it's ugly face around the sodden pile of mold in front of me. Sitting perfectly still rune-scripts begin to run through my mind for force constructs, dissolution fields and conjured weapons. Anything to smite this fool before it had the chance to scamper off and inform it's friends of my presence here.

The problem with the Pale is that they use the void. They pray to it like some insane death cult and it answers their call in as uncontrolled a manner as the whispers of a schizophrenic. The void is, pure and simple, destruction. It's the absence of everything and the inevitability that all things will be reduced to nothing. Either now, at the end of time, or somewhere between now and then. It's infinitely patient, and so it is willing to protect and shelter you, but it is also infinitely hungry, so as a defense or an attack it consumes whatever it touches.

Arcane on the other hand is Order. The laws of the universe made manifest. All physical forces from gravity, space and time to sound, radiation and literal force are yours to play with. So long as you're willing to play endless minigames of "built that Magic Circle" in your head every time you want to do anything.

This makes void, and fel(chaos) for that matter, particularly dangerous. After all, what order is there in raw destruction? Only Entropy. If you're not particularly imaginative, this fight's a match made in hell.

Or, well, it is if I want to get away unnoticed.

I chose [Ambitious], right?

Go big or go broke.

Turning one of my water globes into a cone, I freeze it solid and fire the projectile at it's head with enough force to splatter the hapless orc scout. Standing up, I grab the bundled Imperator's staff and shoulder my burden. Making my way quickly to the stairs, I rise to the deck of the ship and take a look around.

Ogre ships are massive juggernauts by necessity. As large creatures ourselves, even the cramped conditions other races are used to with their ships translate to pretty excessive sizes in all of our construction. The construction of the ship is highly reminiscent of a Greek Trireme. A single main mast just slightly aft of amidship; three decks, the middle one bristling with oars for slave rowers and the lowest for cargo; a small wheel tent at the back and a wedge and keel face for ramming at the front. My vestigial ogre personality twinged at the thought of leaving my slaves behind for the orcs, as even with as few of them as I have, they'd be useful for running this ship, but my dominant human self smiles grimly and prepares for work. Getting this thing sea ready is going to take a lot of time and effort, but escape? For what [Ambition] has planned, that bit at least should be easy.

Setting one stone at the forward quarter-line and the second at the aft, I quickly take a knee amidship and grip the Imperators Great-staff as though a Paladin praying with his sword. [Genius] pays for itself as runic circles spring up at a thought, first around me, and then in spreading lines to connect with each of the stones. Rings of symbols then form around Grond's remains and the ship begins lifting itself out of the water. The entire process start to finish takes about five minutes, but already I can sense thousands of miniature black holes rushing towards me, down the dock.

Tying off the runic symbols to the mast and ensuring that they've connected to the stones emanations properly, I move to deal with boarders.

It'll take me a minute or so more to get fully out of the water, I'm not certain enough of the ships stability to do it any faster, and that's plenty enough time for me to be swarmed. Hopefully though, it's **too much** time for Cho'Gall to haul his fat ass down here and stop me.

Yarr... I'm stealing the Flying Dutchman. Now I feel like a proper fucking [Pirate]. All I really need is a Hat and some proper cannon's.

The first at least is simple. The second I can jury rig now and build properly later. Rock is the easiest thing to conjure with arcane magic, and as an Ogre I've a sort of affinity with the things. Going for simple to speed up the magic and reduce the mana cost, I begin applying force constructs to the summons and let rip.

A Pale dies to a cannon-ball in the face just as it's about to reach the first of my magic stones and I sense a thrill of victory. [Murderhobo] and [Pirate] are in full swing now and I begin the defense of my ship.

Yarr..!

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The battle ends rather anticlimactically. With the rush of Pale to my location, the Ogres had tried to rebel. Or perhaps more accurately, break ranks, scatter and slink away whilst the twilight's hammer was occupied with chasing after me and my fantastic boat. This forced Cho'Gall to remain with the mass of prisoners and make a few examples while he paraded around in Mor'Gok's armor, said Former Ogre King's skulls affixed to the Draenai crystal shoulder spikes for special emphasis. He raged and cursed and withdrew his forces before they could either properly swarm or be slaughtered by me and fired a number of great whopping city killer beams of Fel and Void at my retreating ass, but other than a few gaping holes, he didn't cause anything more than cosmetic damage. Nothing structural at least, so long as I don't try to land in water again. Then I might sink like a stone.

For now, I only had two minor problems taking up my focus.

First... I NEED FOOD! Magic battles are a massive caloric expenditure even if our bodies don't **actually** power anything we do, and I've already missed breakfast.

Second, I need to repair my poor ship...

Ideally, I could spend a month sailing around what remains of Gorgrond and Frostfire to make my repairs. Truesteel is truly amazing stuff and would allow me to easily channel elemental spells through the vessel, be they for attack or defense. Unfortunately, even without the Iron Horde shenanigans sending the Horde Industrial, both dead places are infested by Orcs and more importantly, Orc Warlocks who have been busily poisoning the land. Given my luck so far, even if I didn't get attacked, I'd end up mining Fel-Iron instead and poisoning myself. Shadowmoon is a total no-go for obvious reasons and Terrokar has already been raided as part of Gul'Dan's attempt to keep the Horde together after Kil'Jaden abandoned them and it became obvious killing the Draenai hadn't appeased the elements in the slightest.

This, hilarious as it may seem, left my two options as Nagrand and the Zangar sea. Nagrand is where I am now, and has been largely left alone by the Orcs and their filthy Warlocks due to it housing the Victims of the ogres Red Pox plague.

I blink, stunned out of my contemplation's.

Garrosh Hellscream is one of those victims of the Red Pox.

This has the potential to be... funny.

Should I engage my newfound inner [Murderhobo]? Or shoot for something even _**greater**__? _Taking him to Pandaria, or maybe the great turtle to train as a Monk in repentance for his Father would certainly be hilarious.

A massive shit eating grin splits my face and I turn the ship around in the air, angling inland once more.

And while I moved, I worked.

Conjuration works because when Arcane Energy decays, it becomes physical matter with the remaining spark gaining a stubborn sluggishness commonly known as Elemental Earth. The other three primal elements are also Arcane decay, but hold an important distinction that they're tainted by other powers trying to intrude into the Great Dark; the "Pocket Universe" Arcane created when it split from the Twisting Nether and in which we all live. This doesn't make it exactly easy to just poof things out of thin air like a star trek replicator however; conjuration is one of the most thaumaturgically complex workings you can do, and that includes warding and enchanting. To wit, most people don't even bother with it, rather simply summoning from places where they have them already stored, build illusions and fill them with Force Constructs or only conjure simple items such as pure metal, water or air.

My food problem is solved by the, surprising NOT so simple, act of summoning the first Clefthoof I could spot below me on the Nagrand plains and slaughtering it on deck. A personal note... if you've never slaughtered you own food, you truly have NO IDEA just how much blood comes out of a body. And it only gets worse as the animal sizes up. Further, despite the spell to create a smooth cutting edge out of magical force being almost as simple as an arcane missile, the actual act of butchering an animal into convenient portions is actually somewhat complicated. At least if you care at all about having the bones left over to work with.

Once the meat was harvested and placed under null-time spells for preservation, I set the organs to cook in a conjured iron pot covered in a heat field so that everything would cook evenly. This left me with a bloody mess of a hide, a deck covered in enough of the fluid to probably run all of the enchantments I want without even tapping into the stones, and still a big ass hole in my hull.

Having learned from my mistake with thinking I could work with unfamiliar unprepared materials as easily as I did my rune-crafting tools, I forego my initial plan to summon trees from the plains below and set about dismantling the interior deck for planks and nails via arcane force and carefully shaving the edges of the damaged sections with a mage-blade before doing the same with the salvaged materials. Measure repeatedly, cut once, and be paranoid that you overestimated a centimeter or two. It's far easier to shave wood than it is to cut a piece the wrong size and then try to use it to patch a hole it's not big enough for. Once the holes in the Hull are repaired, I fill out the missing inner spaces with conjured Carbon Fiber and set to work planning out the enchantments.

Such working are complicated things which have to be planned out beforehand, my new knowledge tells me, else the various spells will interfere with each other. At best, this will degrade the performance of any spell I use. At worst...all of the magic I put into building up my ship will catastrophically release in a split second. If that happens, hope it results in an explosion and kills you, because the weirder shit is more probable.

While I plot upgrades to the ship, my final task before landing comes into play.

Clothes.

Now, granted, I've chosen to be an Ogre, and Loincloths are all the rage, right after Toga and Mawashi. But proper armor cannot be undersold. Unfortunately I neglected to purchase the [Tailor] trait during class selection and personally don't know much more about making clothes than occasionally watching my work-at-home-mother. But, some simple stuff isn't too hard to figure out... and besides [Genius] and [Scholar], I've got a lot of Hide to work with.

The first order of business is cleaning the gristle off of the inside of the skin. It takes a bit of work to learn the precision needed to scrape away the unused meat and not cut straight through the Hide with my mage-blade, but I manage not to create too many leather strips before getting it right. Once the hide is prepared, Salt is conjured and the Hide is stretched out between Force Constructs and put under a Haste Spell to bring the curing process into almost MMO crafting spans. I leave the fur and bone plate on the outside of the hide, rather than stripping it to straight leather to maintain the brutish caveman look Draenor residents are so fond of, and begin measuring myself exhaustively for somewhere around 20 minutes before smacking myself in the forehead and conjuring a Mirror Image.

Using the substantial illusion as a modeling doll, I begin cutting pieces of the Hide into slightly oversized shapes I remembered from coats at home. Going for simplicity, I make a Trench Coat (which is basically a cloak with sleeves), a pair of pants and a belt to hold said pants up. It's no Davy Jones [Pirate] Ensemble, but we'll get there eventually. Though with significantly less squid-face.

The really important part of this though, is that the inner leather surface of the completed pieces is perfect for branding Runework into. Sure, I didn't spend the CP on buying enchanted armor for myself, but I did pick up the skills that could allow me to make some. Between [Powerful], [Mage], [Runemaster], [Crafter] and the Stones, by the time I land at Garadar, I've layered enough magic into the three items that I'm fairly sure my next upgrade will need to be an Epic Raid Item.

I park my ship in 'orbit' over the town and scribe a rune of translocation onto the ships deck with magic, before leaping over the side and falling to my 'doom'. A good 20 feet from shattering my limbs on the unforgiving ground I trigger my new threads Slow Fall enchantment and touch down with the Hero's classic 3 point landing. Rising to my full 9 1/2 feet in height, I grin broadly to the approaching Maghar and call out.

"Which one of you scrubs can bring me Geyah?"


	2. Chapter 2

The village of Garadar sits upon a small plateau in the middle of Nagrand. The plateau would be much larger, save for a lake that dominates most of the minor elevation like a reservoir. Two rivers run out of the reservoir, but through the village rather than over the lip of the ridge. An amphitheater of smooth stone arches sits between the twin rivers and large adobe huts festoon the ridge, providing comfortable housing for a thousand, though at times the population has soared as high as ten thousand or more. As far as Orc cities go, it's positively ancient, having existed for nearly 400 years without being utterly wrecked or relocated at one point or another. Though it has been abandoned from time to time, Red Pox has had recurring outbreaks every other generation or so since the first occurrence, mostly cause by discovery and exhumation of infected corpses.

The purpose of Garadar, recently renamed for the Frostwolf chieftain Garad, is as it has always been; to house the victims of the Red Pox. Red Pox is a bio-weapon. When originally engineered, it was because the Ogres were terrified by the encroaching, brave and highly aggressive orcs. After an attempt to steal the orcs Shamanistic power at the Throne of Elements resulted in invasion, Ogre Magi at the behest of High Imperator Molok of Goria invented the plague. Red Pox is a derivative of the Curse of Seethe that only works on Orcs rather than blighting everything it touches, and more dangerously, is communicable between victims, thus the title of plague. This, needless to say, was too much, and the shaman turned the full fury of the Elements upon Goria, burying the city in a deluge of hurricane force winds, raging fires, earth quakes and even sinking parts of it into the Zangar Sea, shattering the empire into a series of city states, such as distant Highmaul.

The most recent habitation and renaming of the city was triggered by Gul'Dan when he unleashed the plague upon the Kosh'harg festival 10 years prior to opening the dark portal. The attack was on a larger scale even than the two times it was used by the Gorian Empire and blamed by Gul'Dan on the Draenai; one of several opening salvo's to the first war and the Rise of the Horde. Garad of the Frostwolfs was elected from among the infected to lead the re-habitation and reconstruction of the village and passed rulership of the clan on to his young son, Durotan. Though Geyah was not infected, she went with her husband to tend the sick and stayed there after he died horribly, not even a month later.

Geyah would watch the Horde in their Crusade against the Draenai from afar and become disgusted by them, distance and a connection to the elements allowing her to see the corruption of Ner'Zhul, Gul'Dan and their warlocks for what it was. And so... while the rest of Draenor would wither and die from the spreading practices of the Legion, Geyah used the orcs fear of the plague to keep the rest of the Horde as far from Nagrand as possible, going so far as to organize patrols and outriders from among the hardier afflicted residents. Under Greatmother Geyah's leadership, they would (quite ironically) come to call themselves the "Mag'har", meaning We Who Are/Not Corrupted.

It is these brown orcs with red speckles who boil out of their communal hovels to meet me as I land in their town square. As one can imagine, this is probably the last place an Ogre would be welcome and calling out for their leader had some decidedly mixed results. I am saved from a possibly swift and messy death, oddly enough, by the orcs themselves who don't even bother hiding their intentions as they swarm out to meet me, weapons raised and ready to strike. I raise a Shield with only a split second to spare and am astonished as steel arrowheads smash through it, sparking, only to be caught by their wooden shafts inches from my face.

Logically this failure should have deterred the crippled Mag'har, but they saw something I didn't and switched from arrows to Javalin. This forces me to expand the shield or become impaled.

"Enough!" a female voice calls out among the throng. It cuts through the din of strangled roars that are the plagued orcs war-cries and I feel the distinct tang of magic. Flicking a finger against one of the blades I can feel similar power, but more, coiled within and smile broadly. Truesteel...excelent!

"You have called, Mok'Nathal," the same voice spoke firmly, and I could quickly see a older Orc woman with greying hair split the throng like moses. "And so I am here." She stands straight, as she walks toward me, though by her forced and deliberate gait, it's obvious she too is in pain. There are very few in the mob of muttering orcs with her age, and none older. Behind her march a pair of green skinned orcs, moving cautiously through the camp, looking around furtively as though they're not sure whether to be more suspicious of me or their fellows.

Excellent, that's probably Durotan and Draka.

Aloud though, I chuckle. "You could call me that, I suppose. It's nicer than what I'm usually called." Twisting my neck and shoulders so that they crack and pop dramatically I repeat the woman's trick and cast my voice to the village. "Highmaul has fallen." I intone solemnly. "I expect this will please many of you, particularly former hellscream clansmen, but I wish to relate my story to your leader. It's... important."

The orcs stare at me, deathly silent. "You're very well spoken for an Ogre," the green man, Durotan remarks to chuckles by most of the crowd.

"And handsome too. I'm a marvel, _I know_," I drawl, brushing imaginary dust off my chest. Fixing Geyah with my stare I wait for almost a minute before my stomach growls.

The Orc Matriarch snorts and raises a brow. Her lightly wrinkled face creases in a smirk and she inclines her head for me to follow, turning and heading back towards the largest building in the camp.

Grinning, I follow her, my shield still a pin-cushion of captured weapons. Snapping the metal tips off many of them and setting them to float around me by their wooden stubs, I discard the remnants of the weapons to the outraged cries of those who'd attacked me. Not that they could do much more. As large as my shield was, they'd need to bring out a blademaster to saw his way through my defenses, and doubtless I'd already captured more of the elemental infused steel than any of them were willing to risk losing.

"We're going to need those back, Mok'Nathal" Geyah tells me dryly as I enter the central hall, shield sparking up a storm as I examine the weapon scraps floating within it.

I laugh at her. "If you understand how valuable this metal is, you'll understand why I refuse. You did attack me with it after all." Even if I wanted to, which I don't, I can already feel that [Gluttony] and [Ambition] won't allow me to just simply hand even a single arrow head back.

"They are valuable," the green woman replies, "but not in the way an ogre like you sees things." I turn to look at her fully. Bulldog like nose, too wide mouth, small tusks like a vampire with an overbite. But at the same time, high cheekbones, a good symmetry, purple hair that doesn't look dyed, piercing blue eyes and a figure like an amazon. [Lustful] allows her to hold my attention easily where I would scoff at Geyah. "Those weapons pierce the hide of the clefthoof we eat, and that is no small challenge. With your pox weakening the people here such weapons are desperately needed to make up for their lost strength."

I chuckle darkly. "It is not MY pox. Or even my peoples weapon. Not at this point. In fact, it's not even the Draenai's weapon." Durotan looks at me sharply, and Geyah purses her lips, not surprised, but not trusting either. "Bring me a feast fit for an Imperator and I will return the arrowheads and forgive the Mag'har's slight against this peaceful prophet." I tell them. "Listen to my story and give me a crafter capable of working Truesteel for my crew and I will return the Javalins."

I Leer at the pair of green orcs. "Just to sweeten the pot, I'll even tell you how you die, and how you might perhaps avoid it." [Enemy of the Bronze Flight] here I come.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The Orc's offering, once it was found by one kid who thought he could be sneaky that even a blademasters weapon could be stopped by it's own hilt guard, was impressive. A fat talbuck with bulging muscles meant for tilling fields was slaughtered and spit roasted in front of me. Blood wine was rolled in by the barrel and even some fresh fruit, which for an Orc IS precious, was brought in and set beside me. It amused me to be good as my word, and hand out the arrow heads as I devoured the entire offering, much to the fascinated horror of my audience. I did keep 1 of the 32 arrow heads as a necklace when one of the Drinking Horns they tried to give me was poisoned. Magnanimously I let the girl who did it live,.. though honestly, it probably wouldn't be long anyway with how pox ridden she was.

My meal mostly finished, I begin talking, waving a talkbuck leg in one hand and the blademasters's weapon in the other.

"Right! So! Contrary to what I said before, this whole thing did start because of the Draenai, but they neither killed the Bladewind tribe, attacked the elements OR unleashed the Red Pox. Somewhere around 25,000 summers ago, their leader, the prophet Velen took part in a civil war on the Draenai's own home of Argus. He and his heretics were chased out and changed their names from Eradar, to Draenai, which means 'The Exiles'."

"And now their civil war has come to our world?" Durotan asked, his voice using a tone I couldn't Identify.

I stared at him for a moment before shrugging. "Yes, but no, at the same time. Over the last 25,000 summers, the Draenai have lived on many worlds. They would stay for anywhere between one generation and a hundred before the Prophet Velen would sense their brethren nearing and they would leave again. Here, on this world... they don't **have** that option." I take a great bite of the haunch as the three of them exchange significant looks and the crowd of Orcs skulking around the edge of the fire-light begin to whisper up a storm. When things quite down again, I swallow and continue speaking. "Your sacred mountain? Osho-gun? The Vile Dark Star of shadowmoon valley? Those are the remains of the Draenai's ship. Without them, they cannot sail away and take their civil war with them, as they always have before."

"Blasphemer!" an orc shouts from the crowd. There's an unfocused roar of different insults I can't particularly make out, but I let it continue for a few moments before raising the blademasters sword and channel arcane lightning through it. The blade reacts violently, but rather than fighting it and exploding, a literal bolt of lightning sails down from the sky to strike the blade and bounce back up, silencing everybody here with the point blank Thunderclap.

"Osho-Gun is a Draenai ship, and you've been speaking to your ancestors there because of it's sole remaining resident, the Naaru, K'ure. The comforting light and song at the heart of the mountain? The power which gives the spirits the ability to known future events? That is he. K'ure." The orcs are silent at that, disbelieving, but unspeakably unable to deny me. Like the Tauren in 20 years, they recognize the truth of the Naaru with an undeniable certainty they can't explain. "Unfortunately, K'ure is also responsible for the Pale. K'ure cannot fly the Draenai and their problems away because he is Injured. And that Injury is the black power of the Pale, a contrast to the bright power of a healthy Naaru like which attracts your ancestors."

Geyah spears me with a stare that somehow holds weight, pulls my attention and silence me all in one motion. "So the Dark Star of Shadowmoon is also one of these Naaru?"

I nod. "K'ara. The Dark Star is what happens to a Naaru when it dies." The whole room was silent at that. "Another injured Naaru lays at the heart of the Draenai's burial ground, Auchindoun. The Bleeding Hollow clan will find it in...five years? Maybe six. When they do, they will attempt to use it to summon monstrous beings of darkness and the burial ground will explode, spreading the skeletons of Draenai across the entire region." I take another bite of Talbuck and a swig of _literal_ **blood** wine while they digest that information.

"Now that I have explained the truth of how the Draenai are responsible for the current war, I shall tell you how the Orcs are responsible for your current suffering." There's a low growl of disapproval from the crowd, but they're too invested in my story now to object. "Eleven years ago, Gul'dan was a cripple living in Gorgrond. His shaman sensed great power in him, but because he could not be taught the elements and he was a weakling barely able to feed himself, never mind hunt, they kicked him out." The crowd guffaws in approval. Idiots. "As a last act of mercy, the Shaman tells Gul'dan to journey to the Throne of Elements. That they can give him the destiny nothing else could. Gul'dan was prideful and resentful however and did not go there for almost a year, only giving in when he was starving, skin and bones. He threw himself down to the Elements mercy and pledged to be a slave to their service, but sensing the hate, resentment and fury within him, the elements rejected him as everyone else had."

I laugh harshly, preempting the crowd and silencing them with my tone. "Would that he had died then, but he did not. Kil'jaden, the enemy leader in Velen's civil war, spoke to him, claiming to be a fifth element. There IS a natural fifth element, but Kil'jaden represents something much older and darker. Gul'dan agreed, and Kil'jaden taught him Fel magic. Elemental Chaos. The elements sensed this and appeared before Gul'dan again, intent on killing him then and there. Only..."

"Gul'dan killed them," Geyah cut in, soft voice piercing the room "didn't he?"

I shrug and grin mockingly. "The elemental upheaval came because Gul'dan won. He didn't kill them, but he used his new powers to steal much of the Fury's power and poison them with his new magic." I finish the talbuck haunch and toss away the bone as the crowd goes into an uproar. At this point they don't know who to hate. Gul'dan? Or Kil'Jaden and the Draenai. It's obvious to them now, that killing the Draenai never had a shred of the hope they'd been promised to appease the elements. But killing Gul'dan... that just might do it... I watch in bemusement as the girl from before, the one who tried to poison me, darts out of the crowd and snatches the bone I'd discarded, snapping it open and sucking out the marrow, greedily. Deciding enough time has passed, I weave a spell to allow myself to be heard easily over the din and continue speaking.

"Kil'jaden was pleased with Gul'dan, but that was not enough. He told the orc to ensure your people were brought to their knees. So... he went and told the bladewind that the Draenai were responsible for the elements pain, and that by sacrificing hundreds of Draenai the elements could be brought back into balance. The bladewind agreed, desperate and stupid. They raided entire Draenai settlements and brought them back to stonebreaker hold to be sacrificed. The Draenai responded, and Gul'dan slaughtered both sides personally with his new powers, ensuring no survivors to tell of his treachery. Then, at the Kosh'harg convened to discuss the elements pain, Gul'dan seasoned your food with the remains of a Red Pox plague victim and stumped around proclaiming that his crippled ass would fight the Draenai, shaming you all into agreeing to form the Horde."

The crowd was now frothing in rage, denial, horror, hate and, in not an insignificant number of cases, pain as their excited state agitated their plagued bodies. The sound only grew as those inside rushed out to share what I'd already told them with the rest of the city.

Geyah looked at me suspiciously and I kept my face flat, offering two of the three Javelin blades to her. She took them, apprehensive. As she should be...telling them all of this was meant for little more than to prime them to accept my demands later. "The war continued for a while, I suspect you know most of it." I continue, flatly.

Drakka nods. "The Draenai were fierce warriors. They commanded great magic and the fury of those who cared not for their own death. Even with the secrets my husband and Doomhammer shared, they fought honorably."

Honorably, right. Orcs had a weird conception of the subject, dealing more with combat than morals. "They gave as good as they got," I agreed, nodding. "This brings us to Gul'dan's angel and the offering of blood."

Durotan shuddered, but his gaze was sharp. "Garrosh is a good boy," he intoned quietly "Garadar does not need to know what happened there."

"Then bring him here, so I can protect him." I smile cruelly, dropping the voice projection spell for the green orc's sake. "Don't misunderstand though, he'll only be in danger because he's near at hand, not because of what I intend to tell these people." The Frostwolf Chieftain nods, and leaves the room swiftly.

I spear one of the fruits at my side with the last of the javelin's and prepare to bite into it when Durotan returns with young Garrosh. Well... that was quick... I remove the fruit from my mouth and observe the brat. He's somewhere on the edge of teen-hood, rail thin and all joints. I can't see his ribs, despite being mostly naked, so hes more stringy than malnourished. Not ripcord muscled either, I note as Durotan sits the boy down heavily between me and him. I extend the javelin tip toward him, fruit attached and as he grabs it and digs in rabidly, I notice several red pustules. Few, but noticeable anyway. Racking my brain I remember,.. he still has the plague in five years when the bladefists defy the quarantine looking for soldiers. Garrosh is supposed to learn of his father then.

I almost feel sorry for the kid.

I reapply the public speaking spell and continue as the kid eats and Durotan steals the last Javelin. Now all I have to bargain with is the blademaster's weapon. Heh... I can deal. "Right. The offering of blood. As most of you know, from your choosing the name Mag'har, the orcs were stalemated with the Draenai and Gul'dan offered a way out. He summoned a great monster, pierced its side, and then offered cups of it's blood to the Chieftain's of the Horde. Though Awed by the beast, most of the Horde refused... right up until Grommash Hellscream responded to Gul'dan's taunting and snatched the warlocks cup away, drinking and attaining the green skin and hulking muscles the Horde is now known for." Garrosh looks up at me, wide eyed and expression queezy. "With the chiefs shamed, Grom offers the cup and his exulted screams of power to the rest of the chiefs. Only Doomhammer and Durotan here refused." I explain, gesturing to the green skinned orc. The rest of the crowd looks on in confusion. "That much you know. What you don't know, is that the mere presence of the green orcs, drunk on Fel Blood will poison the land and the orcs around them." I chuckle, "you have nothing to fear from Durotan or the frostwolves, ...maybe... but they are the example. They didn't drink, and yet still, they are green, simply by walking with the Horde and sharing camp with them. Wherever the green orcs go, the land dies underfoot. Wherever warlocks practice their craft, plants, animals and the very land itself dies to fuel their magics." Garrosh vomits onto my toes and I continue. "Still, this power is exactly what the Horde needed to continue Gul'dan's fool war against the Draenai."

"As many of you know, this was a turning point in the war. With the fel blood, and Gul'dan turning the children who ran with the Horde into adult warriors, the Draenai were pushed back. Again and again, they lost settlements and were routed, until only Goria, sorry, Shattrath, was left. Huddled up like a Goren, the Draenai were untouchable. So Gul'dan and his warlocks took the Red Pox and altered it again, using it this time on the Draenai. As the pox cut you off from the elements, so too did the pox cut the Draenai off from the Light. The city fell within a week and those who escaped are mutating, much like the Arakoa of Seethe, into twisted broken creatures of shadow and hatred. Feel blessed, Mag'har, that you do not suffer the same fate. The part that makes this hilarious, is that once the Draenai were infected, Gul'dan's patron, Kil'jaden abandoned him. He and Blackhand have been leading the Horde against the Arakoa, Saberon, Zangar, Bottonai, Gron and Ogres in a desperate attempt to keep the Horde going without their patron or their purpose to guide them."

"There is hope though,.." I turn now to Durotan and Drakka. "I did promise to tell you how you die, didn't I?" The crowd goes deathly silent. Smiling broadly, I continue. "Has Gul'dan started summoning the clans to Hellfire Penninsula yet?"

Durotan frowns. "Hellfire? I do not know. He has summoned us to the Tannan wastes, that was where we were going before we stopped here to see Mother."

I shrug. "It'll be called hellfire soon enough." Then I get back on topic. "Gul'dan has a new patron. He allowed Cho'Gall to finally take his revenge on Highmaul because he needed a pair of stones to open a doorway to a new world where his patron waits, eager to set the Horde on a new group of hapless innocents like the Draenai. The effort will be successful, but because you make Gul'dan angry, he's going to exile you. The Frostwolves will not be allowed to travel to the new world for nearly two years. When you do arrive, he banishes you from the Horde and bids you flee north, ahead of the advance. Your good friend Doomhammer offers the Frostwolf clan some of his personal guard to help you on your way, but unknown to Doomhammer, these guards have already been enslaved by Gul'dan, and they kill you in a swamp on the north side of the continent."

Drakka looks to be torn between rage and resentful plotting, Geyah looks crushed. Durotan on the other hand looks at me suspicious. "You are hiding something. You said there was hope. What hope is this? Banished and murdered in a land not our own?"

I grin widely, showing all of my teeth. "Because, my good friend, in that foreign land, your son Go'el survives. He not only survives your death, he survives the Horde invading the land where he grows up. He survives the invasion of that land by the Hordes masters and leads your defeated people out of defeat, out of near slavery, and aids in the defeat of the Burning Legion, earning your people a new homeland for his service. What's more? He and Gromm face Mannoroth, Gul'dan's angel, who's blood cursed your people to be blood drenched monsters, and kill him, freeing the orcs, at the price of Gromm's life." The little boy beside me, is shaking violently now. "Still, good things do not come without a price. While your people escape slavery on this new world by being useless slugs who won't even grunt when whipped, Go'el takes the name slave and lives it for 15 years."

There's a scream of rage and suddenly Drakka is there, hovering in the air above me, suspended by two oversized axes who's heads are burred deep into my shield, caught by their hafts. "Drakka,.. you should know better. Next time, if I may suggest, use Genosaur roots for the hafts of your blades. They'll add the fifth element, spirit, to your weapons and not get caught and stopped by a simple wall of arcane force."

Geyah stares at me reproachfully. "I was mistaken earlier, calling you a Mok'Nathal for your odd appearance. You are truly an Ogre. Spare us your further cruelty and make your demands. What is it you want?"

I put a hand almost as big as the boy on Garrosh's back. "I want the kid." I tell her flatly. "Don't worry, I don't intend to kill him. But he'll commit a crime in the future greater even than his father drinking the blood. I want to...change that. The future is like a river. Toss in a boulder and it'll just flow around the rock, but with enough boulders? The river can change completely. Give me the kid, and I'll let you have the Blademaster's weapon back. Give me a smith who knows how to work Truesteel, and maybe a fallen shaman besides, for my crew, and I shall let Drakka keep her weapons. Unbroken. You may even be able to use what I have told you to sidestep your deaths. Maybe."

The crowd rustles and mumbles, like trees in the wind. Geyah looks like she's about to refuse and the green couple are pensive. The tension builds quickly as we stare each other down, until Garrosh stands up and places himself between me and the Orc leaders. I blink, surprised to have a facefull of the orcish kids ass and lean to the side.

"I will go with the Ogre, greatmother." Garrosh tells the woman firmly. "If anything he says is true, I must make up for..._father's_ failures. Maybe I can even be the stone that changes the river."

"Young Hellscream..." the old woman tries to counter, her voice soft and pitying.

The tone only makes the shoulders in front of me stiffen in anger and pride. "NO. I must do this!" He turns around and I can see the expression of rage and utter determination on his small black jaw, as he extends his hand to me. Fighting off a smirk and keeping my face as solemn as possible, I hand him the blademaster's sword. Rather than trying to slash my throat with the leeway I've allowed him in my shield, he grips the handle in both tiny hands and turns around, presenting it to his chieftainess. "The blade that was promised. I'll take Gorehowl from my father when the time is right, but for now, I must go with..." I can almost hear him frown. He twists, looking back over his shoulder at me. "What is your name?"

"I am Thurm, Runemaster and Arcanist of Highmaul." And at this point in the Hero cycle, I'm that asshole who comes to town to issue the call to adventure. So who will you be, little Garrosh? Son of the king, who leaves home to redeem the old order? The cursed child on his first steps to become a villain? Or the withering wormtongue, following in the footsteps of the dark master. Hah... I flatter myself.

After Garrosh's statement, things proceeded quickly. The Translocation Rune I'd built for my quick escape allowed me to stow the kid away with a handshake and the crowd moved on to more important matters.

Like figuring out whether Drakka's weapons were worth two of their own being enslaved to an Ogre. Fun times.

I'm attacked five more times before the matter is decided on, three of those times by the same female orc who tried to poison me earlier. I'm not certain whether she just REALLY hates Ogres, or she's trying to die, but even my patience has its limits. Well, that and it's getting late so [Murderhobo] is making my skin crawl, my fingers itch and my mind wander through increasingly violent spell-forms, unbidden.

Her head exploding also solved an argument over whether or not I was honorable.

Turns out I am. Go figure.

My two new companions are an old-ish man named Gortag or "Steelgrip" if you care to translate, and his young half dead apprentice (and daughter) Gorka. Both of them are shaman, and both of them know how to work Truesteel. Apparently knowing a little shamanism is required to forge the metal.

More importantly, neither of them expect they'll live long, either. Even if they don't come with me.

Pricks.

The three of us translate up to the ship and I leave them on the deck with one warning. "You see those two stones, fore and aft?" They nod. "Touch them, and you die. If the flood of arcane power coursing through you doesn't burn you from the inside out, I will. Other than that, have fun! Find young Garrosh, wherever he's scampered off to, pick a room or deck and I'll be down shortly to furbish your rooms and call everybody to dinner."

The old man, Gortag, looks like he's sucking on a lemon and smelling shit at the same time, but he nods and replies "yes, master."

I snort. "None of that. I am Thurm. If you must be formal, call me Runemaster, Arcanist or Captain. Something approximating student when we get to the point where you start teaching me."

The grizzled orc huffs and stumps off, showing a back that used to be heavily muscled, gone to seed and covered in blisters. His daughter Gorka stays one the deck, staring at me. I return her stare with an elevator gaze until she becomes uncomfortable and stalks off. Hah. She's not bad looking though...for an orc. Gonna have to get her to drop the mohawk if she survives the next few weeks though.

Shrugging, I examined my network of flying circles and began plotting out improvements.


	3. Chapter 3

Diner was surprisingly peaceful. My new crewmen ate in silence while little Garrosh plumbed me for everything I could possibly remember about the Rise of the Horde and his father in particular. After one absolutely exhausting info-dump the dumb kid came to the conclusion that his father was mostly good, but had a tendency to be a dupe. This was deeply dishonorable, but hardly irredeemable.

"So... what crime do I commit?"

"Many, kid." I reply between mouthfuls of only slightly singed clefthoof. "I blame most of them on Thrall though." At their odd looks. "Durotan and Drakka's kid, Go'el. Drakka's recently pregnant with him. As I told them at Garadar, he's going to be raised by the natives on the new world. What I didn't tell them is that he'll be trained in Shamanism by Drek'thar and in orcish culture by your father. The mix of teachers leads to... a lot of very odd decisions which leave the Horde desperate for various things. When he takes you from Draenor in 20 years, he glorifies your father and leaves you in charge of the Horde while he runs off to save the new worlds elements from suffering the fate of Draenor. You break several peace accords with other races and do your best to murder every single member of their race. You abuse and try to enslave your allies. The one clan who tries to broker peace between the two sides, you order her city slaughtered to the last child, and then in the new land I'm going to bring you to, you steal their buried artifacts and nearly doom the world as Draenor has been doomed. In the end, every single clan on the new world bands together to attack the Orcs new homeland and kill you. And that's just the start of your troubles."

I lock eyes with the small orc. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

Garrosh eyes are wide, pupils dilating wildly. "Then... why haven't you... killed me?"

I laugh darkly. "Because. For all the crimes you have not yet committed, you're a prize worthy of the Imperator's hoard. The most powerful warrior in your generation. A true genius tactician and general. A charismatic leader who inspires his people beyond their limits. An idealist to the core. Hah... If you weren't blinded by rage, lies and a narrow education you could have led the entire world to glory." He'll more or less do exactly that, in an alternate timeline. If not for the immortal player swarm.

Garrosh had his mouth hanging open now and a piece of half chewed meat fell out onto his lap. He didn't even notice. The other two were staring at me with considering expressions and I grin smugly. "That being said, we're approaching our destination. More a way-point really, but no less necessary. Remember. We, are pirates. We swear to no one and fight for no cause meaner than fantastic loot. That being said, we take only the best. Everything I bring onto my ship must be worthy of an Imperator, and that includes you two." I point at the father-daughter pair. "Once we pick up our next round of guests you're going to need to start teaching me about Truesteel. Sadly, all I know is that it conducts and amplifies the primal elements like nothing else in this world or the next."

The girl, Gorka, rushes to the side and looks over the rail. I follow slowly though I don't need to. We're now roughly 200 feet over the waves of a vast expanse of water, it's waves broken and stilled by the thousands of tiny grey islands. "The Zangar sea? I would understand if we were headed for Bladespire or Gorgrond, but our flight is almost halted?"

I grin and ignore her, giving in to the whispers of [Guided by Elements] and adjust a few variable runes in the formula that control our speed and heading. In less than five minutes, the ship shudders and stops in mid air. Below us, the world shimmers like a heat haze and I turn to my companions. "Welcome, my minions. Welcome to Tel'Redor; the last refuge of the Draenai." And with those words, the ship itself shimmers and a rush of static washes over everybodies skin, revealing several mile wide mushroom caps covered in the soft swooping curves and sharp crystals of Draenai architecture.

The shift also reveals no less than a dozen of the silver and gold armored blue goats already on my deck with at least a hundred crawling up the sides. Throwing up a massive shield around my three orcs and two runestones, the demanding shouts of the Draenai around us become confused shouts and I'm given enough time to draw a rune of Arcane Speech in the air. This causes the goats to hesitate before one, a male even broader and more muscled than myself steps forward cautiously to trace the same rune in front of him. We both grab our runes, and clasp free hands, while our left grip respective weapons.

"Greetings, Eradar." I reply, grinning wide.

The Draenai takes half a step back, nearly breaking our handshake. "How... no, of course you would kn... but... you are not corrupted?"

I laugh aloud. "Peace, Anchorite. We are not with the Legion. Nor are we with the Horde. These orcs are my followers and I am...from Highmaul. After a fashion. We have no intention of revealing this refuge, though I do need to speak to Velen with all haste. I understand his sight is returning and he's probably waiting for me."

My explanation cause the buff mage warrior to tense, gripping my hand with enough force to crush stone. "The prophet is indisposed at the moment. If you must speak to our leader you may first speak to Exarch Akama. As a sign of trust you will not leave your ship nor depart without permission."

It's my turn to frown. "You're certain I cannot speak to Velen? Or failing that, Exarch Hata'aru?"

"Exarch Hata'aru is dead." the man replies gravely.

"...Fuck." I forgot that. Going to have to find his ghost and see about binding it for when I get a rez-bot... But damn it, he was central to my plan to GET a rez-bot! Or, well, fix one, as it were.

But... given that was my plan; and now it can't work, why did [Guided by Elements] still bring me here?

Because it's a chain quest, obviously.

I nod sharply. "I will wait then... Anchorite..?"

"Almonen." He replies, releasing my hand and stepping back.

As the mage relays the other half of my conversation to the rest of the space goats, I take a look at the rest of them. Many of them are in silver armor, lined with gold and studded with purple Arkonite gems, but somewhere around two out of three Draenai don't fit in their armor. It's... too big for them, if I had to put a name to the oddity. Here and there are further aberrations. Particularly, Draenai missing one of their horns or having smooth foreheads rather than the crested ridges.

Broken. Or at least, the early stages of them. That would explain why there are so many plate clad Vindicator's here. These are primarily the ones who escaped the fall of Shattrath, and we're... at least a year before the Draenai start exiling their cursed brethren, explaining why I'm going to be talking to Akama rather than Velen or Ishanah, the two Draenai leaders from Burning Crusade.

It doesn't take long for word to pass among the Draenai of Tel'Redor and have Akama arrive. He was on his way as soon as I hit their wards, it just took the shrinking Exarch longer to get there than the troops. My ship is flooded with Draenai on every level now, examining every inch of everything, including my minions and Runestones. [Guided by Arcane] pings at the edge of my mind and I'm forced to hastily add a storm rune to the shields, destabilizing them somewhat, to deter sticky fingers. The soon to be former leader of the Vindicators is shouting at people as he approaches and much of the crowd is cringing away under his raw fury.

Or perhaps because he's now visibly different from the rest. His frame is too small, the hulking muscles that seem a signature of Draenai males are only half their size, his blue skin has a distinct shade of grey to it and I can't be certain, but his teeth seem almost sharklike, even from twenty feet away. He walks stiffly as though forcing himself to stand upright under extreme duress and the hooves, if I'm not mistaken have become hoof like nails instead. His case is much more advanced than the rest of those on deck.

The same mage/priest from before is following at Akama's heels and quickly puts up a variation on the Arcane Language rune that acts as an Aura, automatically translating for anyone who's not under magic resistant shields. I take a moment to study it, fixing the form in my mind for later use. [Guided by Elements] [Genius] [Mage] [Powerful] and my own natural proclivities are already working together to spin off alternate uses for the variations in spell-work I'm seeing here.

Unfortunately, Akama is not a patient mutant space goat, and I'm forced to refocus myself quickly. Or shield, but then things would break down pretty quick.

"Why should I let you live?" the once mighty Paladin rasps out, peevishly.

Rude. "Hello, Akama." I reply, in kind "do you still remember the light?"

The void cursed Eradar scowls at me. "Kill him."

Immediately the nearly two hundred warrior priests, fallen and not, ready their weapons and tense for battle. The Exarch himself begins to turn away and for the first time since leaving Highmaul, I feel _fear_. Think fast, asshat! "If you kill me, you'll never find a cure."

THAT stops everyone on deck in their tracks. Including Akama.

"Tell me what you know, ogre, and I may spare your life." He says quietly into the tense silence.

I shake my head. "You know that's not how this works, Broken. I know relations with my people have been... rocky _at best_... since you built Shattrath on the bones of our holy city, but I'm honestly here in good faith."

"And what do you know of our curse, Ogre? Do you not serve the Horde who cursed us?"

I snort. "Not hardly. The Boulderfist Mound were the only Ogres to serve during the Horde's rise. My people have only just fallen under their sway, at the hands of the traitor Cho'Gall." Akama hisses at the name, and many of the others hold looks of rage and pain. "The curse which ails you is the Blood of Seethe, dark god of the Arakoa. Gul'dan altered it to be a gas which would affect only Draenai, you do not need to worry about the infection spreading. At least, not from the Broken's mere presence. That's as much as I'll give away for free."

"I know of the Spires of Arak. The Rangari still remember those cursed pools." The High Vindicator reposts. "What is to stop us from journeying to there ourselves and seeking to turn poison to cure?"

I shrug, chuckling darkly. "Nothing I could do, certainly. Your Magi might restrain you as insane however. Curses are broken, not resisted or treated like anti-venom."

He nods slowly and the forces on deck relax. "Tell me what it is you want then, and your fate shall be decided from there."

Nooow we're getting somewhere. "I need men for my crew. I was hoping to make a deal with High Artificer Exarch Hata'aru to trade a few loyal men for my aid in salvaging the Genodar and it's occupant. That last bit is what I needed to talk to Velen for. Naaru can be healed, and I was looking to trade that knowledge for training in The Light and Draenai crystal technology. You may not be aware, given your late arrival to our world, but Ogres are...idiot savants, to be frank, and magic is what we were born for."

"And you recognize us to be in a poor position." He replied, bitterly.

"Not as bad as you might imagine." I shoot back, glibly.

"Explain."

I offer his a mocking raised brow. "And what do I get?"

The fallen High Vindicator narrows his eyes. "Almonen!" He barks.

"Yes, Exarch?"

"Summon Mennu. The Ogre..."

"Runemaster Thurm", I interrupt, placing the hand not holding Mor'Gok's weapon on my chest.

He glares at me. "The Runemaster is to be given his chance."

Almonen cringes. "Mennu is a coward, sir. Are you certain?"

Akama bares his teeth in a nasty grin. "Yes, he is, isn't he? It's about time he paid for abandoning his post, isn't it?"

The Anchorite saluted and gathered a few warriors with a gesture before quickly hurrying away.

"Vindicators! Rangari! The Ogre has called for Volunteers! Who shall answer?" Everybody on deck straightens. I've got to hand it to the man, even as a half mutated wreck, he's got a presence.

There was a long pause where nobody spoke, nobody moved.

"I'm looking for teachers more than laborers, if that helps..." I called out, hoping to break the ice. My luck was... minimal, but there. A woman in leathers with a hair band and a single swept back horn approached to stand beside Akama.

As her mouth opened, I could see that her teeth were sharpened as well, and the other horn looked to be dead. She wasn't nearly as mutated as the Exarch, but she was already suffering. It didn't seem to affect her pretty face or long hair, held back by a headdress that brimmed with power. "I shall answer the call, Exarch." She locks eyes with me. "Please, Ogre, tell us everything you know. If your knowledge saves my people, I... I will willingly be your slave." Her voice is scratchy, and reminds me of Raven from Teen Titans.

I shake my head. "I'm not looking for slaves." I tell her firmly and dip into [Guided by Arcane] looking for information on her. Samaara, 500 year old sister and surrogate mother of Yrel. Rangari Sunbow. A hunter mostly, but a relatively capable Mage and Priest in the Draenai tradition. I almost comment on her sister before the intuition twinges again, informing me that Yrel died to the Dark Star when the Horde invaded Karabor. I don't need the warning to know that'll be a hot topic for her. "But I accept your pledge Samara."

She looks up at me, sharply, her mouth open in shock. "How?"

I smile thinkly, going for comforting rather than my usual sardonic antagonism. "Your prophet Velen is [Guided by Light]? I am [Guided by Arcane]. And I know a _great many things_." I tell her, turning my gaze back to lock eyes with Akama. Alot of the Draenai in the crowd listening gasp at my proclamation and lower their weapons so that then business end rests on the floor. None of them take a knee, unfortunately, but their expressions are a LOT less hostile.

In the background, I can see Almonen returning, another Draenai being dragged between the warriors he left with.

"Alright then, Og... Thurm," Akama growls out "tell us what you know."

Smiling broadly I sigh. Things finally seem to be going right here. Damn that was dicey. "Ah, the things I know. So much background and context for you to understand your current curse and so little time... Right! The short version! Draenor has always been a land of powerful energies. It, in fact, sits and the confluence of several large stellar ley lines, but unlike your world of Argus, it doesn't have a world soul. This led to a number of very interesting circumstances that don't matter in the context of your problem, but it also allowed for the creation of three entities that one could very reasonably call **Gods**... Their names were Seethe, Anzu and Rhumkar. Thousands of years before you exiles and your Naaru arrived on this world these deities were personifications of Void in Seethe, Arcane in Anzu and Light in Rhumkar. Contrary to the Teachings of the Naaru, Seethe and Rhumkar didn't fight each other for quite a long time, as they were held in peaceful balance and friendship by Anzu the Ravenlord."

"And this Seethe is the source of the plague that ails us." Akama rumbles. "That makes sense. I hope you don't expect us to appeal to this..._god_, Og...Thurm."

I shrug. "I suppose you could. His shade might even answer, but I doubt it." I shake my head. "No, Seethe is dead."

Akama scoffs. "A pitiful god, then."

"Hah!" I laugh aloud. "Perhaps. You should take heart in it though! Such events mean that your friends in the Army of Light have a chance!" I retort, struggling to keep condescension out of my voice as all of the Draenai hang on my words, their focus sharpening at that last statement. "Back to our story though! Each of the Gods created a race of servants to follow them from the native fauna, and THIS is where the trouble started. Rhumkar made the Arakoa from the Eagles who roosted in the Spires and they were intelligent enough that their worship empowered Rhumkar. Anzu created the Dire Ravens from crows who nested among the crags and they held a powerful animal cunning. Sentient, not sapient; but naturally gifted in the arcane and able to perform spells in spite of their lack of intellect."

"Like Ogres then?" The Broken Exarch rasped, innocently.

I gave him a deadpan look for several moments before a smile cracked one side of my mouth and I laughed briefly. "Touche. Regardless, the third race, the Windserpents were created by Seethe and they were... insane. Whether they had no intelligence, animal sentience or full sapience is unknown because the whispers of the Void drove them to terror, rage and the fury of a cornered beast from which they would never become anything more. This made Seethe bitter and he vowed to avenge his pride on Rhumkar. To this end, Seethe went to Anzu the Ravenlord and explained his plans. Anzu tried to talk him down for some time, but eventually agreed with him, vowing to help his low flying friend reach the heights where Rhumkar and her Arakoa roosted."

I snort. "It was during this flight that Anzu revealed he had not kept Seethe in his confidence and had instead told Rhumkar what was going on. Rhumkar had refused to aid Seethe to see if they could fix the problem and Anzu was stuck in the middle, trying to force things to work regardless. This enraged Seethe and the two of them fought in midair. The battle was fierce between the two low flying gods and they fell out of the sky to land heavily in the swamps where Seethe's children nested. The battle ended with Anzu biting off Seethe's wings and as the dark god bled, he sacrificed his life force to turn his blood into a curse that would haunt his family until the end of time. Anzu, covered in this blood, became crippled and his nature changed, so that he was now the **God** of Arcane AND Void. Rhumkar saw Anzu and felt terror and pity for him. She would never land on the ground again, for fear of the Blood of Seethe, but encouraged her children to worship Anzu as a protector deity as they worshiped her as the Mother deity."

"And... from this," Samara speaks up, slowly, "you want us to learn that our Past as Arcane users can protect us from the worst of the curse?"

I stare at the Rangari woman thoughtfully. "That's certainly a possibility. Though, from what I've seen of the Draenai's future, you'll actually save yourselves by reconnecting with Draenor's elemental lords. Those of you who don't break completely at least... No, I had more to my story, but I suppose I can cut it even shorter."

"While Anzu was still part of the Arakoa society the Arakoa ruled nearly all of Draenor, their society led by three orders, one each for Light, Void and Arcane. This ended about a thousand years ago when the order of the Light tried to hoard all Apexis crystals bearing the stored knowledge and power of their people to themselves and began throwing members of the other two orders who protested into the Pools of Seethe's blood. It started a war that destroyed their empire completely complete with apocalyptic explosions ruining most of their cities, but that's beside the point. What's important is that there have only been two cases in which the Seethe cursed outcasts broke the curse and recovered their wings." NOW everybody was paying attention. "One of those incidents was very recently, where a number of outcasts drank the blood of Mannoroth as the Orcs did shortly before the route which led to them taking Shattrath. The potency of the Fel magic in the blood pushed out the black magics out of their body and pushed them to regenerate rapidly to full health. I doubt you'll see that as a good trade however."

There was a muted, but vocal display of disapproval fro the crowd and I continued. "The other was a group of Adherents of Anzu in Gorgrond back when the Ogres still ruled and warred with the Bottonai. A Genosaur captured the tribe and sought to use them as cannon fodder against the Empire. He empowered them with the Spirit of Life, expecting them to become the mutated hosts of their war with the Orcs. The result surprised all sides, restoring their bodies and changing their magical natures and plumage green. Still though, it didn't stop Goria from winning in the end and dissecting them to learn what we could."

I stared out across the crowd for a while, hoping they would get it. Almonen, the mage-priest was the one who spoke up.

"In essence, to save the Broken, they need to find a patron powerful enough to purge their bodies of the darkness." He shakes his head. "We have tried this however, and even the powerful healing spells of the Prophet only burnt the afflicted rather than restoring them."

I chuckle darkly. "Tell me, Anchorite, do you remember your Cosmology?"

He frowned. "Light and Void destroy each other. Light burns away the darkness, and the Darkness consumes the Light, depending on which is stronger."

I roll my eyes. "That's true enough, and should be enough to tell you why the light would not heal **Void **warped flesh, but it's not what I meant. When Light and Void clash, what power isn't annihilated or consumed in the exchange _becomes __Fel_...But when Void and Light harmonize, they produce Arcane. The Eradar, before the Legion came to your world, were steeped in the arcane up to the eyeballs. You still are. Normal people's eyes only glow with an inner light when they channel powerful spells, submerging themselves into the elements with which they are most familiar. You Draenai, your eyes constantly glow with power even among the untrained, and even the Curse of Seethe does not dim this display, merely cutting you off from the Light and twisting your flesh as is characteristic of Void corruption."

A reedy voice from emanates from behind Almonen, and the space goat steps aside to reveal Mennu. "So, you're saying that if we were to experiment with Light-forging living creatures and craft armor and items that balanced Light and Void, we could gain the understanding cure ourselves?"

I Grin toothily. "Oh, I like you..! Yes, exactly. Though I don't expect it will be a swift process and the Broken will get worse before you can make them better."

"Perhaps," the shrunken Draenai replies shrewdly, "But you also made note that in the future some of us would find other disciplines by which we could stave off degeneration. Shamanism, I think the Orcs call it?"

"And the Living Magics of the Botonai, if you can find any survivors." I add, holding up my index finger as I made my point. "The rare Ogre Researchers and Orcs who learned it called the art Druidism."

He looks me up and down. "Perhaps being sold to you will not be the punishment my brothers intend..." He looks curiously towards the three Orcs I have separated from the invading Draenai by a thick wall of arcane force. "Those three are Shaman? Yes, I recognize the skirt..."

I'm grinning ear to ear now. Mennu the slave driver, Steam Engineer of Coilfang Resivoir, Mennu the Betrayer, leader of the Broken enslaved to Illidan rather than working for him willingly. This almost makes me sorry for treating the man like a mere loot pinata when I played Burning Crusade. I extend a hand to him, "I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Artificer Mennu."

Akama makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "Enough. You have your payment, Thurm. Have you anything else to add? Or shall we set sail?"

My grin turns from friendly to predatory. "Set sail, Exarch? Does this mean I'll be gaining a full crew compliment? You've paid me only in teachers so far... and we haven't even covered everything I intend to barter."

The Broken Vindicator's eyes narrow and the light within them intensifies until they look like stars. "Don't push your luck, Ogre."

My grip on the Imperators Staff tightens and I reroute some of the arcane power from the stones to myself rather than the shields protecting them. "Are you threatening me, Akama? I've been civil so far, have I not?"

Mennu scoffs, "Don't mind Akama, stranger. You're rubbing at a sore issue, and one quite personal to our dear Exarch. He's been struggling to hold the survivors together for the last year, but we're nearing a schism." He steadfastly ignores the rage now being directed at him by the fallen Exarch and continues anyway. "He fears that you're a Legion pawn here to tip things over the edge. That if he lets you get away with too much, it'll be civil war as the broken are pushed out, or exile as we're sent away with you. It doesn't matter that you're offering hope, Sargeras made mighty attractive offers as well, and look ho...ARGH!"

The 'coward' screams as Akama strikes him in the jaw with his hammer, and I panic slightly, throwing up a pair of shields around the pair of them. This... isn't exactly the smartest thing to have done as the Draenai swarming my deck quickly grow restless, confused and somewhat hostile, many of them hefting their weapons once more.

It's like Mennu's words are prophetic, I think as I watch the crowd of Draenai swirling around forming clusters of broken and lines of uncorrupted Draenai. It's not like he's wrong though. What I remember from the game, this situation's only got to last... what, a year more? Two? Akama and those harder hit are going to go into a coma's shortly as the fel magic continues to ravage the world and those who aren't will be forced out to form their own societies. Hovels really. Lots of them will be killed by the orcs Gul'dan and Blackhand don't like, a few will side with the alliance coming through during Through the Dark Portal and when THAT happens, a tribe or two of the truly unfortunate ones will follow the Horde through to settle in the Swamp of Sorrows where they're little better than Khobolds.

I've already disrupted that, but I'd expected it to still happen, only with a few more levels of gradation, whilst I mined them for artifacts. After all, the Ashbringer, Lights Wrath and T'uure were all forged from mere scraps of dead Naaru. _**POWERFUL**_ Artifacts, all, and Osho'Gun has an entire Naaru who won't fall to the void for another decade.

[Glutinous] wants me to cut my losses and use the stones to kick everybody off my fucking ship. WALK THE PLANK BASTARDS! But [Ambitious] whispers in my ear tell me to push the issue. Force the schism and fulfill all of Akama's fears, stealing away the Broken to be my crew. It shouldn't be **_too_** hard to corrupt them to the point I can dissect the Naaru for parts if a few of those parts go towards saving their asses. [Pirate] is happy either way.

That was when something unexpected happened.

"So THIS is the legendary Faith of the Draenai?" a mocking childish voice called out into the growing static of hostile muttering. I looked over to see Garrosh stuck halfway through the shield I'd set up to protect his ass, holding a piece of iridescent blue grey metal.

That cagey little shit...

Regardless, he had the space goat's attention now. "Pathetic! It's no wonder my people beat yours. When the Orcs were plagued by the Blood of Seethe we willingly left our tribes and the Horde, so that others would not die in our stead. And yet here you stand, your curse neither deadly nor spreading and like peons you're ready to tear each other apart!"

He spits on the ground and I face palm. "Set sail, Captain, these talbuck fuckers aren't worth joining the crew!"

Panicked inspiration strikes and I start spooling up power in the Translocation rune to banish everybody from the ship when, miraculously, the hostile, Swiss cheese stance of the Eradar exiles reforms into military ranks.

Shocked, I pause in my spellcasting, violet energy rippling beneath my skin like a parody of ripples and ants.

From the formation a Draenai I've yet to hear speak steps forward. "I am Hatuum, the Exarch's Lieutenant. Forgive him, these are trying times. However, as my commander was saying before Mennu's disruption, it seems as though we have a common cause. Shall we get down to it?"

I nod, slowly, shaking off the unplanned bit of whiplash. Is this what everybody else feels like when I pull this shit? Well played, Garrosh, brat learns fast. "I'm aware of the Horde's current movements and was planning to trade them for a couple of permanent crew members. Preferably a variety of experts I can hope to learn something from, but artisans to help me retrofit my ship with Draenai technology would suffice."

Hatuum rubbs his chin. "I will see what I can do. You understand not many will be eager to work under an Ogre, given our mutual history, yes?"

I snort. "Of course. I expect much of what I'll get will be desperate Broken, eager to trade their service to me for lessons from my crew. The better to stave off the inevitable." The power I'm holding on to is beginning to become unbearable now and I begin to let it slowly bleed off.

The Lieutenant salutes, fist to his chest, and continues. "My men shall depart then. A cadre of two score Vindicators and Rangari shall accompany you to the Genedar with a beacon. Once there, we can set up a perimeter, begin salvage operations and perhaps continue our negotiations. Is that acceptable?"

So long as it doesn't stop me from stealing the Naaru bleeding out in your basement, yeah. Aloud I replied. "I think I can handle that."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

In the end, I didn't end up needing to evict the Draenai. Despite infesting all three levels of my ship, the space goats trooped out without so much as trying to hide one of their number under an Invisibility spell.

Or if they did, it was too good for my own spells to notice. [Guided by Arcane] don't fail me now...

The man Hatuum left in charge of the 40 man force of Rangari and Vindicators is a broken by the name of Guloto who came aboard with their portal beacon. Or, maybe he was aboard earlier, I just didn't notice him in the crowd.

Whatever.

Using the translocation runes I'd already made, I teleport the ship back to Garadar's airspace no doubt causing a panic in the town below. Once there, a quick check with [Guided by Elements] and a few changes to the flight runes have us headed for Osho'Gun. The important matters dealt with, I summon my crew and head below decks to settle them in.

So far, the crew quarters have been a light affair. Despite my offers of much more elaborate and well apportioned living spaces, Gortag, Gorka and Garrosh simply asked for some sleeping mats in a corner of the rowing deck. I was tempted to give them Hammocks simply to be pissy, but ended up going with a large memory foam mattress.

Samaara tried to ask for more of the same, but I managed to talk her into some amenities. A personal bathroom that conjured hot water and banished again down the drain. Toilet, shower, tub and sink. Her room I made an actual room, conjuring walls, a door and enchanting said door so that only she could open it and it would do so automatically just at her presence. Of course, I could get in, I was the builder, but there's no reason to tell her that.

Mennu's room was much more interesting as not only did the Draenai allow me to have fun building his quarters, but he combined it with my first lesson in Draenic Engineering. Starting with which, their technology is exactly what it looks like; raw crystals and slabs of precious metal.

"So, why all of the gold? ignoring the sheer expense of it, doesn't the softness of the metal make maintenance hell?" I ask.

Mennu shakes his head slowly. "Gold behaves differently when saturated with magic. Once you get past three hundred motes per gram, it stops flowing over the surface like water and sinks in, hardening the metal in proportion to the power you fill it with. The threshold lowers to roughly fifty motes if the magic is Light and raises to seven hundred with the Void."

"So... it's a capacitor then." I muse. "Is there an upper limit?"

"A..._capacitor_? What is that?"

I blink, did the translation spell fail? "An item used to interrupt a stream of power and build a charge for periodic release."

"Ah, "Mennu smiles slightly, "a man of high ambitions are you?" I smirk at him and he chuckles. "Yes, well... no. It behaves more like a well or cistern and depends a lot on the purity of the metal and whether the magic is flowing through it or resting. I have a number of formula I may eventually teach you, should you get that far. Simply though, when the magic within a metal becomes too great, it will melt without heat. Then there is a second upper limit where it will either crystallize or break reality and punch a hole from the Great Dark into the Twisting Nether."

I rub my horn in thought before jerking my hand away and staring at it, bewildered. "I suppose other metals behave differently in both pre and post saturation phases."

He nods. "Of course, platinum in particular is sought out for it's ability to transmute elements with such a small loss it's only noticeable in city or ship wide scales and silver is an excellent conductor."

That part I know from choosing [Crafter] for myself during character creation. Had I gone back to 'my' house for Thurm's tools, I could have retrieved, among other things, a platinum enchanting rod. Or Truesilver as it's called in WoW.

There are however, more important questions to get to before he starts assigning me exercises and projects like any good teacher. "So, how do you get so many spells to fit inside a single crystal?" That was one of the great limitations of enchanting. A gem will hold single spells simply by casting them upon the gem, and do so permanently regardless a nearly infinite range of power used, but trying to layer another spell atop it will either cancel the first spell, or cause the it to explode, often violently. Sometimes both.

Mennu grins, smug. "What makes you think we do?"

I give him a deadpan look. "The Genedar is a space ship, the sheer number of conflicting magics needed to run that sort of operation is staggering. But aside from faults caused by the crash, it's one gigantic fucking crystal. That shouldn't be possible. "

"_IS it now..?_" Mennu asks, stressing his words.

I narrow my eyes. "As far as we could tell... If its not, then... silver welding?"

"An interesting concept, and one you'll learn the mechanics of later, but no" the Draenai replies, clearly enjoying himself.

I try to think back to the Exodar, Botanica and Tempest keep. The insides looked alot like stone, but the sound file when you moved was boots on metal decks. Except... "The metal plates always orbiting your crystals. They act as a stabilizer."

Mennu claps slowly. "That's a part of it, yes. But the simple answer is that what you see as one crystal, is actually several gems cleaved together with magic. Much like the effort you go through to balance multiple magic circles for a ward scheme, the more crystals in a single monolith the more likely it is an engineer will create a disharmony, thus the orbiters." He falls silent as I digest that.

Once I've had a few minutes, I stands up sharply. "Alright! Now, to your room!"

I don't have a glut of gold, silver and platinum to plate his room with, nor a horde of gems, but we manage with just my spellwork alone. A portion of the space is set aside for him to sleep in a hammock, something he found amusing when I described it, and a similar bathroom setup to Samaara. The rest of the space he'd claimed was set up as a shielded workroom with magically expanded storage spaces. I also got him to agree to a series of climate control, noise canceling and hospitality wards such as a doorbell and general quarters alarm. The final bit of furnishing was a magical stove and vanishing trash can.

"All I need now is a distillery..." the Draenai commented.

I shrug. "We could do that. I don't know how to make beer though, so you'd need to be the project lead. And we'd need to have something to ferment. Maybe when we get to the new world."

"The new world? You've a great deal of optimism. There are reasons beyond K'ara that we did not salvage the Genedar or construct our own."

I laugh darkly and turn to leave, pausing at the door. "Oh, you'll see soon enough. Of that I've no doubt."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The Dutchman reached Oshu'gun shortly after sunrise of my fourth day in this new life. From our position up in the near the clouds, the sun had already risen nearly an hour ago, and I was already on deck, incidentally in perfect position to watch the dawn wash over the crystal mountain. Off to my right, Gortag and Gorka are on their knees, arms raised over their heads as if praying, probably something dealing with Shamanism I should really be paying attention to, and stepping up behind me to stand on my left is Samaara, the Rangari scout. We stand there in somewhat awkward silence as the light hits the peak.

The entire mountain seems to light up with an inner luminescence. As the line of the horizon sweeps down the mountain, it continues to get brighter and brighter until suddenly the light of the new day washes over the manicured field with it's metropolis sized magical circle.

"It's beautiful." I murmur, taking a drink of hot water. It's a pity I don't have any tea leaves or Chocolate. I'd tried summoning wine from Thurm's supply, but the kegs had been smashed and I had to rinse the mud out of my cup instead.

"And tragic..." Samaara adds, almost too quiet for me to hear.

I look over at the rangari. She looks... odd, beyond the melancholy, and it takes me a minute to recognize it. Her remaining horn is now gone from her forehead, and is instead being gripped and twisted between white knuckled fingers. "Perhaps, but it's about to become an opportunity. True strength comes not in never falling, but in getting up every time you fall."

She's quiet for a while. "Is that the voice of experience?"

Her voice is heavy with something I can't identify and before I get the chance, the ship rocks with an explosion.

Standing ramrod straight, my eyes follow the suddenly visible shield surrounding my ship to where the cracks begin and then to where a gigantic hole is closing slowly as a circle of emerald flames fight against the repairs. A sense of danger screams at the back of my mind and I thrust my arms out, twisting my hands into a series of arcane gestures, rotating the shield so that the next two blasts of Black and then four of Purple energy hit different parts of magical bulwark.

"Rangari! Man the rails! Ogre, turn the ship! Present us a broadside!" Guloto appears in my peripheral vision with the troops that had followed him.

I nod sharply and feel my resolve steel and my mind clear to a razor focus as golden light washes across the deck. Six Vindicators, obviously not broken, are kneeling in triangles around my stones and radiating power. A tickling at the back of my mind presents a spellform to draw that power in and as soon as its implemented the shield begins to gain ground against the fel and void attacks, rapidly closing the holes.

As The Dutchman turns in the air, I get a look at what's attacking us. It's a column of bodies, easily thousands of them, with a core of pink flesh rimmed by a writing mass of grey.

Cho'Gall is on the march, and somehow... he knows where I'm going before I do.

Fuck. Me.


	4. Chapter 4

"THURM!" a voice called out from below, rattling the shield and making it echo the words oddly. "How nice of you to return my stones! Kneel before me and bare your throat, I may even be merciful!" "**NO! WE MUSTN'T TRUSTS IT, CHO! THEY BE HERE FOR THE ONE WHO SINGS! IT CALLS TO US, WE KNOW!**" "SILENCE GALL! You'll have your toy, now I want MINE!"

Shuddering at the two headed insanity [Glutinous] [Ambitious] [Murderhobo] [Pirate] and indeed, plain old self preservation urge me to go for broke. Leaning heavily on [Guided by Arcane] I drop the protections around the stones themselves and begin to draw on their full might.

"_A little power is a dangerous thing_" I intone, a smirk on my lips as I push for theatricality.  
"_Drink deep, or taste not the mana spring!_" As I speak, my arms raise above my head and I begin to float above the deck, violet energy coursing off me in snapping, crackling waves.  
"_For a little power intoxicates the brain,_" I state, my voice becoming guttural as my hands flash through arcane gestures, building my spell.  
"_While a full cup sobers us again._" In the distance, above the approaching Horde, the sparse, fluffy, dawn orange clouds quickly darken, thicken and begin to spin. First slow, and then rapidly.  
"_**FIRE**__**STRIKE**__**!**_" an aperture opens in the base of the storm and all of the clouds light up with electricity. A moment later, a beam of pure biblical death spirals down from the sky and strikes the large smudge at the front of the column before spreading out in growing spirals to engulf the forward third of the the Twilight's Hammer.

Beside me I hear a child gasp in awe while the Draenai gird themselves against the returning shock-wave. I can see a number of them look back from the rails where they're firing their own smaller spells, arcane missiles and such, to see the Vindicators praying around my stones, and their eyes light up in comprehension. And relief.

I almost wonder if that's unfortunate, that they know it wasn't my own power that brought down divine flame upon our mutual enemies. But... it seems it's time for said enemies repost. Down on the ground, Pale are now visible as a barrier between the Twilight's Hammer and the Highmaul, their dark aura's sucking in the flames like miniature black holes. This isn't a total defense, thankfully, as even at this distance I can see many of them pop in an explosion of gore and golden flame.

The effect on Cho'Gall is... respectable. Cho is laughing, his body awash with emerald flames, but the second head, Gall is screaming incoherently. Even compared to his normal. Muttering an far-sight spell, the air ripples in front of me and the two headed menace appears before me as if on a view-screen. The Gall head and arm are burnt savagely with blisters over most of his surface. Flickering, swirling flames of gold and ash fight each other as he continues to scream, while Cho merely glows effervescent with chaotic power.

It only takes a second or two for him to stop, and Cho snaps his head to look me straight in the eyes through the spell. "I don't know whether or not to thank you for shutting him up, Thurm, but know this. When I get a hold of you and those stones, AND I WILL..." I cut the spell and growl. I've no need to hear just how I'll be tortured for eternity.

This turns out to be the clever thing to do, because just as I cut the man off, an arcane nova flashes across my deck, clearing to reveal five Highmaul Spellbreakers.

My blood runs cold as the ogres almost immediately wrestle the power of one of the stones away from me. I want to curse myself for not maintaining the shields on the stones, but, well, these are _fucking spellbreakers_. They're trained to do what I've been aping through [Guided by Arcane]. The fact they got through the outer shield, powered as it is by the stone, is alone terrifying.

Still, there are ways to beat spellbreakers. It doesn't even involve swarming them. Which I can right now.

As the [Traitor lvl3] kill team wrestle the stone out of my control, the Draenai Paladins who were empowering it recover from the telefrag-blastwave. Three oversized Arkonite hammers slam heavily into the magical sumo's and battle is joined.

Taking a page out of my enemies book, I blinkstep behind one of the two remaining Ogres and hop up to wrap my arm around his neck and bend him over backwards in a headlock. Unfortunately, I'm a short over-muscled fireplug of an Ogre, so instead of completing the move we both fall to the deck. My arm tightens around his neck like a vice, biceps bulging against his windpipe, my other arm pummeling his head every time he tries to cast a spell. My tattoos pulse erratically with light as the two of us struggle, and his movements slowly become weaker and weaker until he stops moving and I drop him, slamming one last blow into his stomach for good measure, making him vomit. I roughly push his head to the side so the infiltrator doesn't drown in his own vomit and get up.

While I'm wrestling my own victim, the Vindicators are facing off against the other four. Arcane crystal hammers blazing with holy light crash into the spellbreakers shields, punching partway through and creating spiderweb cracks everywhere. Blazing holy aura's blind the Ogres, disrupting their aim and healing the Draenai from the Ogres return strikes. Arcane lances spring forth from the Ogres hands to spear through the aura's and punch messy holes through the Draenai's silver armor, holes through which blue blood oozes shortly before the Light heals the wounds. The holy arua's flicker and strobe as the spellbreakers do precisely what they were trained for and the pain on the paladins faces is a clear measure of their success...

Unfortunately, Ogres Vs Draenai is a battle which history has already decided...

The Ogres lost.

Though the Ogre champions and the Draenai paladins appear to be pretty evenly matched, there are forty Draenai on my ship, and three Orcs. While most of the space goats keep up their barrage on the Twilight's Hammer far below, arrows, arcane missiles and more quickly begin to pepper the spellbreakers from behind. Most of the spells are disrupted and most of the arrows patter harmlessly against the shields as their enchantments fail, but it's clear the Ogres are being worn down.

The tide turns, bizarrely, when Garrosh, creeping along like a Rogue, uses a truesteel blade to pierce the arcane barrier of one of the Ogres and hamstring the brute. The pain distracts the spellbreaker enough for a hammer to shatter his shield entirely and pulp the Mage Hunter's head.

At this point, I'm done with my target and begin attacking the next with a beam of raw arcane power. It's a bit cliche, entirely wasteful and quickly disrupted, causing burns on my hands as the spell unravels, but now the fight is more or less 4 on 3, it takes the spellbreakers attention long enough for another hammer to break through and bury itself in his lower back.

2 vs 4.

Of course, I've forgotten the prime rule of Ogre combat.

Ogres, while arrogant, are fucking cowards.

With three of their number cut down, the remaining spellbreakers break from combat, launch themselves at the stone and vanish in yet another telefrag.

"Fuuuuuukkk...!" I stare at the spot where the pair of the vanished for a moment, fighting off panic. This is _**definitely**_ a non-trivial loss.

I'm distracted by a tickling at the back of my mind and Blinkstep back to my other stone in time to weave a spell disrupting a second group-teleport zeroing in on that stone. I may, possibly, perhaps, be able to fly my ship like Jaina in B4A, [Powerful] had a note about such in it's item-description, but frankly, I'm not willing to test it. Call me a cowardly Ogre if you like, but I've got more important things to do than prove my pride by surviving Azeroth without collecting every cheat code item in grabbing distances.

As the splash of gore from one of the less fortunate teleporters (the rest rebounded elsewhere) falls across my armor and the deck, I hear a roar from the railing. It's not clear whether the Draenai are pleased or horrified, but they're certainly excited about something. Teleporting again, I appear on the rail to see a large portion of the central column missing. A quick check with [Guided by Arcane] confirms that my Grond Stone is no longer on the field, meaning that Highmaul has fled, escaped leaving only the unlucky behind at the mercy of the Orcs. Those that are left are ringed by mostly green orcs. A quick muttered scying spell reveals an orc with a gigantic, almost iconic, axe standing atop the decapitated body of a two headed Ogre.

Warsong clan. Right. Should have remembered they were part of the Highmaul raid.

That's the good part though. The thing that has half of the Draenai crying scared though is the undulating mass of grey orcs loping towards Oshu'Gun, Cho'Gall riding on their shoulders as though a prince on a palanquin at their head.

This... can't be good.

It doesn't take a genius to put it together. Between Gall's comments, the nature of the Pale and my theft of the Grond Stones, it should have been obvious. Cho'Gall wasn't following me. He wasn't predicting my movements. I walked straight into his path. Because I stole his tribute to the Horde, he had to go after another artifact of power. The same one I came here for. But instead of wanting the Naaru for it's nature, or failing that, parts; he wants it as a power source.

It's a subtle difference, I suppose.

The real problem is that, far from my earlier excuse of greed last time we met, I can't simply let him have it. They already have K'ara, the Dark Star, he's the base material for Gul'Dan's Death Knights and later several artifact weapons. The Horde with _two_ Naaru corpses? Yeah, no. Forget the Draenai trying to gut me, I can just teleport banish them off my ship. Gul'Dan and Cho'Gall gaining a fetish for Naaru bits can only go badly for everyone.

And I'm part of everyone.

This time at least.

Rushing back to my remaining stone, I take it under my arm and kneel upon the prow of the ship, one hand touching the deck. Arcane power flows through me like a river and spreads throughout the ship like a wave. Half a second and one explosion later, the Flying Dutchman is nestled against in the forked valley of Oshu-Gun's crystalline peak.

Wasting no time, I send out streamers of Arcane Power to each of the Draenai and force my plan into their minds. One of the prime bonuses to Arcane Sorcery is the ease with which you can perform distributed spellwork. I can feel as one after another, the space goats come to understand and accept the flow of power I offer. They vanish, one after another, teleporting to places in the air, on the mountains slope, and on the ground in rings around the city sized mountain/ship.

I'm going to cast a major teleportation spell... and they're going to be my amplifiers.

I have a flashback to reading Illidans battle at the Dragonblight in Knaaks War of the Ancients series, but push it and my nostalgic grin away and begin casting the stone raised above my head. First the ships shield balloons outward, engulfing the Genedar in a hemisphere of purple light and stars. The bubble immediately comes under attack, and several of the faster pale even manage to get under the descending edge before it slices into the earth. They immediately latch on to the nearest Draneai spell-bearer and begin trying to drain him. That's when the six paladins I'd stationed about a third of the way down the slope light up like a crown of lights. Some of their power comes back to me, feeding into the shield and allowing secondary shields around him to rebuff those same Pale attackers, but most of it sinks into the mountain itself, making the entire thing begin to glow.

Several goats accept my offer of power when the assault of the pale begins and I teleport them down to take care of the problem in the growing light of the mountain while others bring the Tel'Redor portal beacon up from below decks while great runes begin to weave themselves through the air.

Deep below the earth, a pool of darkness stirs as the Pale horde approaches. It flows out of the ground and through the spherical shield, beneath the dirt, burning holes in the power field. Altering several of the runes, I tune the barrier to absorb the light now radiating out from the gem mountain and combine with the void gnawing from below. Suddenly, the power surges, pulsing outward and rebuffing both the Pale and Cho'Gall himself. I gasp as it tries to rebound back into me, creating a deadly feedback. I pour the energy back into the stone which absorbs it like a sponge, allowing me to avoid popping like a zit.

With the extra power, comes extra pain. Much like when I first stole the twin stones, my entire body bursts at the seams with power and it flows off me in waves. This time at least, I have fellows to share the pain. And the spell load. The light coming from the mountain is now a brilliant gold, but as the spell progresses streaks of violet light begin to shine through. As the power builds, reality begins to twist and bend and then, with an earth shaking boom, the mountain _moves_.

I have scant seconds to smile before I collapse, the stone tumbling from my arms. The last thing I see before I pass out, is Gorka and Gortag catching me by the shoulders and lowering me to the ground, Garrosh staring down at me.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

I wake to a feeling of ants crawling behind my eyes, a parched throat, clenched fist of a stomach and a pounding headache to cap it off.

I open my eyes and immediately regret it. My vision is red and feel an absolutely murderous need for a caffeine. Apparently I'm making a fair amount of noise as well, because Samaara immediately appears in my field of vision and I have to fight down the urge to crush her throat to stop the noise. Closing my eyes and gripping something she offers me hard enough to heat a crack. A vessel of some sort, I realize as my hands moisten. I take a deep drink and shudder.

"How long was I out?" I ask, my voice rough, eyes still firmly closed so that I don't have a target for my irrational ire.

"Almost a week, Thurm." Crap. Then this is the punishment for [Murderhobo]. It was just an itching irritation at Garadar.

Or hell, maybe it's the result of overuse of power. Who knows?

Regardless, I push away the thoughts of blasting everything in sight just to silence the painful noises and open my eyes to focus on Samaara. My vision is still tinted with red and as I look at her I can feel my breathing speed up and heat rush through my limbs. "The Genedar?"

She nods, frowning. "Mostly sunk. We weren't expecting you to teleport the entire ship to Tel'Redor. We got lucky with the teleport expanding from a single point rather than falling from above or speeding in from the side. The mushroom heads are now free floating and docked to the slopes." She hesitates. "You... should probably stay out of sight for a while. There weren't too many deaths, but there were a lot of injuries."

I snort. It'll probably make dealing with [Murderhobo] simpler, though I'd prefer not to have this be where I get [Target of the Alliance]. "Anyone important?"

"You're still alive, aren't you?"

I blink and look at her in a new light. "You've been taking care of me?"

She blushes and nods. "Gorka as well. Garrosh is hiding though, you tried to kill him twice in your sleep and without you there to interfere, my people...aren't welcoming to orcs. Even now that we know the difference between the Mag'har and the Horde. He Gortag and Mennu have been spending most of their time on your ship."

I nod slowly, holding back a wince as the motion hurts. I take another drink from the...wait, is this a bucket? Yup, there's the handle. I take a deep draft and summon some meat from the ship. My stomach unclenches and my throat is soothed, but my vision is still red, my blood hot and the itching and hyper-violent stray thoughts remain.

I've got to go kill something.

Soon.

Dammit, this was not such a good decision.

Movement in my peripheral vision puts me on the offensive and in half a second I have a fireball in my raised hand. Despite this fast reaction however, I'm still ambushed by a pair of soft lips meeting mine. Mere inches away, my eyes meet with Samaara's surprised teal. The fire in my hand goes out and moves almost automatically to cradle the back of her head, pulling the Draenai into the kiss. My other hand goes to her hip as she begins to relax and I roll, so that she's lying back on the bed and I'm crouching over her.

"Well, now..." I murmur, releasing the lavender blushing huntress "to what do I owe the attention?"

She squirms and blushes even deeper. "It was just supposed to be on the cheek..." she temporizes quietly.

My heart sinks and I pull back. Funny, the itching is starker for it's temporary absence. I'm stopped by a hand resting itself against my cheek.

"Whatever you did last week..." golden light flares in the hand against my cheek and all murderous thoughts and confusion melt away into a warm peaceful sensation. The golden power washes down my neck and spine taking away all sorts of small aches and pains and filling my, somewhat gratuitous musculature, with a sense of relaxed power. "I don't know what it was, but I... **we...** those broken who participated in the teleport... can feel the light again." She sits up awkwardly on the bed and kisses me again. Intentionally this time. I stiffen, tent and chuckle, breaking the kiss and bow my head, pressing our foreheads together.

She laughs nervously, looking down, and I smirk. Sadly, she scrambles off the bed and out of our mild tangle of limbs, still blushing spectacularly. Babbling an excuse I don't hear, she quickly leaves the room.

The need to kill; the itching, red vision and murderous thoughts however, do not return. Or rather they do, but only as a vague tugging at the back of my mind. Something that needs my attention, but is no longer an urgent need.

"_Interesting..._" I murmur, thinking about the various implications of what just happened. "Very interesting indeed."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Outside is a bustle of activity. Lines of Draenai carrying tools, weapons, and large chunks of white crystal swarm around like lines of ants converging on an apple. Said apple is the half mile wide stump of the Genedar, around which no less than fifty Zangar caps are now docked. A dozen of the shrooms, each the size of a city block, hold Draenic architecture of off-grey colored stone that swoops and curves softly, studded by sudden jagged purple gems. The rest of the caps are lashed together with improvised moorings of various sorts and crystal looking energy bridges. On these, the remains of the once great dimensional ship is piled with a combination of military precision and artistic chaos stemming from a hive of workers breaking the pieces down further and reassembling them into odd piles of... something I can't see at this distance.

The room I've been sleeping in is on a surprisingly small Zangar cap tethered off to the side of one of the residential caps, but NOT the one where my ship is tied.

Frowning, I run my hands through the air carving a series of runes in the air with quick movements, forming a scrying spell. There is a fair amount of resistance to the spell and my frown becomes a scowl. With a bit of focus, [Guided by Arcane] shows me the cloak the Draenai have thrown over the area and how to integrate my spell within it. I make the corrections and begin scanning for my ship. It takes a few minutes, but I find it at one of the other residential caps. This one has larger buildings, shining with a golden light. Looking inside my ship I quickly find Garrosh, Gortag, Gorka and Mennu, but...

_God damnit!_ My STONE! Where is it?!

My focus zooms out and breaks into a kaleidoscope of magic colors. Purple, blue and gold predominate, but the soft green of life magic isn't rare either. Just beyond my vision a shadow of black coils behind the blue and gold, but it doesn't seem to have any direction, so I dismiss it as emanations from K'ure. With a series of gestures I clear the map of each the black shadow, the blue of the Zangar sea, the golden blot of the Genedar, the teal of the living Zangar, and am left with only purple. Arcane covers the map in a pulsing web of magi-tech, ranging from the cloaking devices, dimensional shields and a rudimentary weather control spell to handheld communication gems and bristling armor, tools and weapons.

There are several bright stars among the mess and I focus on each of them in turn. The first is a crafting station where I almost get distracted by the complicated mass of developing clarke tech. The second is...a hive of pods in the middle of the great ship. If I didn't know about the Exodar and how our Draenai players woke up I'd have thought it reminiscent of the Matrix. The third is a cluster of bright points that turn out to be the source of Tel'Redor's magical utilities. Finally, I find my stone. It's in the golden building near where my ship was docked earlier. Zooming in on it, I find, to no surprise, that it's a temple of sorts. This close, I'm unable to filter out a brilliant golden light off to one side and turn away from it to find my prize.

The room holding the artifact is small, dark and has a floor of spongy fungus. Odd for a temple, but then this is a temple built atop a mushroom. Kneeling in front of the stone is a small crowd of Draenai with warped features, and at their head... _Akama._

I growl, fuming and sit back on my own mushroom to think.

Alright, I've been out for several days, after a climactic battle. I'm still not entirely certain why I'm here instead of on my ship. Samaara made note that I'd cured a number of broken. I'm almost certain that was due to the Nether-Light forging at the end, not the stone itself. I had kicked Akama off my ship through, when he assaulted my newest minion, so he wouldn't know that. He WOULD know about how I'd connected everybody to the stone as the power source for the teleport. I suppose it follows that he'll assume it was the stone specifically, and want to keep it close until he can figure out how to purify his kin. That was his goal after all. Save the broken.

...I'm probably going to have to steal it again, when I leave.

Fuck.

I consider briefly telefragging the broken community organizer or experimenting with a bit of good ol' Scry & Die, but am distracted by the feeling on a hand on my arm. Looking up, I can see the broken are all looking...no, not at me, but at someone beside me. Turning my head, and looking down slightly, I find the earlier source of overwhelming light.

'_Forgive Akama, Thurm...' _the figure speaks softly, _'he does not understand what he does.'_ The pillar of light turns to look up into my eyes. _'come find me. We must speak.'_

Then he turns and leaves.

Well... that answers one question. Velen has _definitely_ recovered from whatever was ailing him during my last visit. I glance back at Akama, [Envious] still gnawing at my nerves, and make a couple of arcane gestures. The spell is small, but it still makes him stumble as my force construct slaps him across the back of the head.

Scry & Die experiment 1: success.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Leaving Akama and the other broken behind, snubbed by their prophet, felt incredibly good, I must admit.

Still, while everything is fun and games, some of it also serious work.

My scrying follows the ancient space goat as he moves through the rooms of the temple one after another, before drawing closed a curtain on a room at on the third floor. The room is open on one side to the elements and sports a large clam like balcony covered in runework done in golden crystal. At the rooms apex is the bottom of a large jagged purple crystal that appears to my sight to be projecting a dome over the entire community. I'm briefly distracted, deciphering just what it does when Velen speaks again.

"_Please, child, join me. I do not have the Soda you are fond of, but I will swear by the tea._"

I try not to let my jaw fall open. Velen is, after all, a prophet guided by the Light. Sobering and steeling my expression, I project a mirror image of myself into the room, and take a seat on one of the thick cushions before teleporting in, trading places with the construct with only a whisper of a pop.

"I'll admit, I forgot just how the light works for a moment." I reply, accepting the cup he offers. "The one true path, the Naaru call it. It's less truth and more an illumination of the strongest probability, given it can't account for those guided by the Void."

I take a sip and the Prophet hums. "The light believed you would understand" he acknowledged evenly. Then he chuckles at my grimace. "The sugar is over there" he waves at a counter on the far wall. I weave a small spell to summon the needed sweetener from across the room and then another to call some clefthoof milk from my ship. "I wouldn't suggest that." The grandfather goat comments, amused before I can drop the dollop of cream in. "The leaves will react badly and curdle the cream."

I sigh heavily and suck down the cream drop before mixing the tea to ensure the sugar is dissolved. "So... is there any point in my usual production?" I ask him before trying the tea again. "Or did you want to leave yourself with an air of mystery? Given your comments so far, I can't imagine the light hid much of anything from you."

"You are... difficult to see, actually." He replies, voice tight. "Your path intersects with the shadow regularly, though you seem to overcome it in each case. Regardless, I am an old man... would you truly deny me the chance to be entertained? There have been too few moments in my peoples history where my sight has not been pivotal and that leads to a certain... reverence."

"People with sticks up their ass, you mean." I reply bluntly.

He chuckles. "Quite."

I smirk "I intend to make myself too much of a nuisance to have people put on formalities around, or expect them from, me." I take a swig of the tea, it's actually pretty good with a bit of sugar. "Let's see... From what I understand, you lost your vision of the future during the crash not because you saw the future in the void, but because you didn't learn how to balance them. The void shelters all, and so when it sees the shape of things to come, it sees all possibilities, and judges them all equal. On the upper hand, this allows disciples of the void to break the iron chains of fate... they could save us all, if they cared. Unfortunately, the nature of dark magic drives weak minds to nihilism and insanity, unable to untangle the paths and see cause from effect. The Light on the other hand is the Revelation, removing the question of what hides in the unknowable beyond and bringing things into focus. You've been learning, but it will crystallize in about 30 years when you return to the Netherlight Temple and return Sakara to the Light."

The prophet's eyes widen and he almost drops his cup, spilling the warm green liquid across his lap. "Truly, Thurm? This is good news." Then he frowns. "But you are changing things. I have had many visions in the past few days where you lament your actions."

I shrug. "Perhaps. But as Aman'Thul told Nozdormu, Time is a river. Whether a stone will change it's course, or if it will lead to the same place regardless," I snap my fingers and reverse time on the priests cup, refilling it, clean and pure. "_**I **_am the master of my fate_._"

"_**I **_am the captain of my soul." Velen finishes, and the pair of us grin at each other.

Then he turns serious again. "Of the things I could not see, is what it is you intend to do in the depths of the Genedar. And that is what I needed to speak with you about. The Light has warned me to stop you. I may yet; but your actions during my infirmity have earned you a chance to explain. What is it you intend with K'ure?"


	5. Chapter 5

Looking down at my empty teacup I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly through my nose. "Well, for starters, I was going to ask you to help me with him. As for my immediate intentions? I intend to tear out his heart and deactivate him. It shouldn't harm the Naaru, but like removing a constructs power core, it should turn him off and solve the **void **leakage problem." I look up into the stunned face of the Prophet and fix his gaze with my own. "As for the rest of the plan... that's rather complex. Tell me, Velen, what have the Naaru told you about how they were formed? About the nature of the **Void**, the Legion and the Army of Light? About why a Naaru falls to the **void**, and how it can be returned to the Light?"

The elder space goat begins to speak, a series of expressions flitting over his face. Most of them frowns. "At the **Dawn**, Light expanded across the new universe in a riot of creation, and as it expanded, it cooled. In these cool areas the other elements, including the **void **first appeared. Much as you enjoy quoting, nature abhors a vacuum, and the nature of the **void **would grow to reflect that. Such it is with Naaru, whose sentience and form grew from concentrated fields of elemental light, that when they expend themselves, they grow cold and dark. The war against the **void **and the ultimate purpose of the Army Of Light is to return **the fallen** to the Light and by doing so, save our universe from depredation and oblivion."

I go to speak, but stop briefly when I hear him mutter "I had wondered".

"That is... mostly right." I temporize. "I suppose the Light may not be lying to you or holding back so much as blind to alternatives as I mentioned earlier." The Prophet raised a brow and offered me the teapot, expecting me to continue. I filled my cup and nodded, doing so. "The Naaru did not simply form from the light. None of the elements simply form elemental entities on their own, no matter how much power you concentrate into an area. All of them have a second element as the core of their existence, around which the primary element condenses, similar to rain or crystal formations. That element, is Spirit. Positively aligned, it is life and nature. Negatively aligned it is Death and Undeath. When Neutral, it is more... _potential_. Many scholars argue whether they are in fact three similar elements or different phases of the same element, but always, in every elemental being, there is a core of elemental spirit."

I gulp down my small cup of tea and continue. "The problem with the explanation you just recited is two-fold. If it worked like that, then Naaru could.._should_ even_..._ fall through all sorts of elements as they darken before finally collapsing into a **void **state and becoming **void gods**. Second, is that elemental spirit is a fusion of the four primal elements, and the four primal elements are decayed forms of Arcane that only exist in the great dark. The reason all of this is problematic, is that Light, **Void **and Fel stay in their own dimension, the twisting Nether, unless called upon; whilst Arcane created the Great Dark Beyond as a separate reality, requiring Spirit to transcend before finding them. Naaru, **Void gods** and Demons would have been created _last."  
_  
I refill my cup and push on. "In the other elementals, too much spirit, and the elementals are pacified like the naaru; just barely enough spirit for them to form around and they are violent and aggressive like the **void lords**. Formed around death rather than neutral spirit, they are corrupt and spread decay and pain. Formed around life and they become wild gods such as Rhumkar Anzu and Seethe. In both cases they shepherd souls to their final rest."

Taking a sip, I change direction slightly. "There are two primary ways to fulfill the Army of Light's purpose; healing a Naaru, bringing it from an injured **void state** or a full on **void lord**, back to the light. The first method, for injured or darkened naaru, is the the sacrifice of spirits. This is what is happening with K'ure and D'ore where the spirits of the dead gather around them like flies and are consumed when there is no one left to morn them. But... should someone" _like you_"give their souls up willingly, rather than unknowingly or by force, it can happen a _LOT_ faster."

Velen flinches and the sigil hovering in front of his forehead flares brightly for a moment. "I would be the one to do this, then?"

I scowl set my cup down heavily on the table. "Not if I can help it. You would do it in an alternate reality to save Karabor from Gul'Dan's use of the **Dark Star**, but I felt that was foolish in the extreme. Yrel is cute, but she was _not_ a good replacement." I glare at him. "K'ure is not nearly so far gone." Clearing my throat and refilling my cup, I continue. "The second method, which you will use in the Netherlight Temple to redeem a** void lord**, is to gather several score priests trained in the balance of Light and **Void**. Or if not all are that strong of mind, at least a few balance, while the rest are split evenly between holy and **shadow**. To ease the strain, various artifacts may be employed. The **shadow priests** will need to drain the **void **from the entity while the Holy priests cast healing spells and the balance priests attack it with cleansing wrath."

The Prophet shudders slightly. "The Scarlet priests armaments. A sword and staff forged from the darkened remains of K'ara." He looks at me sharply. "This is what you intend to do with K'ure as well."

I wince. This... could go very badly, very fast. Cover your ass time! "Not necessarily." I temporize, holding my hands up. "If I _just_ wanted that, I would have stolen the Naaru without any of you being any the wiser. It's not as if they resist. I mean, why even come here in that case?" Well, besides poaching Mennu and Samaara. "K'ure will fall and then be slain by champions of A'dal anyway if I don't interfere. Breaking him down for parts would be a last resort. I could have left you to call blindly on A'dal and the Tempest Keep to save you who survive the coming cataclysm, none-the-wiser." Velen looks mollified and I masterfully resist the urge to breathe a massive sigh of relief. "As for what I want... well, it occurs to me that I've made a rival of a combat scholar skilled in Arcane, Fel and **Void **and am about to set myself against a series of armies who do the same while I myself am merely a servant of the Arcane. ...It seems prudent to acquire a nuclear deterrent" and some study materials "that can allow me to match and counter these qualifications." Among other somewhat more ambitious plans. And that was just what I wanted before I lost one of my Stones.

Velen sits back, considering everything I've told him and is silent for several minutes. When it doesn't look as though he's going to get back to me any time soon, I start scrying again. After some searching I find the Pale and Warsong tribes marching through Terrokar forrest, just past the border of Nagrand. They have placed the remaining Highmaul Warriors and Drudges in chains and Gromm and Cho'Gall are arguing about whether to join the Horde without tribute and only half the Highmaul, or to seek them out in... Frostfire ridge? Huh... apparently Cho'Gall has tracked my stone to the Blades Edge range near Stonespire. It's not IN the ogre city, but it IS nearby. Both of them want to seek out the Highmaul refugees and punish them for their 'desertion', but Gromm is apparently more worried about Gul'Dan's grand gathering, and Frostfire is too great a detour without the Ogre ships...which Cho'Gall smashed to driftwood in rage over my escape.

They are planning to meet the Bladefist and Bleeding Hollow clans tomorrow on their return from Arak. Once they meet up, it'll be time to decide...

I am interrupted from learning what the orcs plan to do next by Velen "Come, young one. I think I have found a compromise that may benefit us all. Let us gather your belongings and step forth."

Startled, I let go of the spell, and it shatters. Looking up at the Prophet, I can see the determined cast of his face and nod firmly. Unless I want to fight him, there'll be no swaying the man from whatever he's just decided.

Hopefully that means I've won this round.

Following him downstairs, we return to the basement where Akama was holding services. The other broken have now dispersed, but the fallen Exarch is still there, staring at the stone in obvious frustration.

"Hello, prophet." He greets us without turning around, his voice like crunching gravel. "I suppose now that our _guest_ has awakened it is time I returned the artifact?"

"It is." The ancient replies simply. "But there is still time for one last rite. Gather the krokul aboard the Genedar. We shall meet you on the way."

At this, the Exarch turned to us, looking between me and his leader, eyes wide. Then he bows, a fist thumping his chest. "Immediately, prophet. Archenon poros."

As he literally sprints out of the room, Velen motions to me to follow and proceeds to leave himself. I grab the stone, and secure it under my arm before doing so.

As we exit the buildings front door, I look down at my guide. "I take it you mean for me to restore the rest of the broken."

He nods gravely as we plod along. Already I can see a shift in the activity around the mushroom city, as Draenai who strike me as slightly... off, rush up to one another and then the entire group sprints away moments later. "Yes. I have thought about what you have told me, and what you told my subordinates while I was coming to understand the new state of the future. Following logically, it was not their inclusion in your spell that fixed those who journeyed with you, but rather something you did with the Naaru below. A patron, you told them. Someone with enough phenomenal power to wash out their tainted blood, but not something strictly of Light. Your regular insistence that Arcane is a product of Light and Void and your use of light during the battle to flavor your spellwork leads me to conclude certain blasphemies. Such as how you claim a Naaru might be saved."

I frown slightly and then let it slowly morph into a grin. "I suppose it would be prudent to disperse the shadow somewhat before going down there." I glance at him and the grin turns into a smirk. "Even if I am walking beside a handy dandy lantern."

"I am pleased to be of service..." The Russian space goat replies dryly.

"I'm going to need a source of light, though" I told him seriously. "I could take it from the Naaru, but that seems almost... counter productive." I suppose it would help my plot to make an arcane Naaru, but there's the chance of going too far and either creating a void lord or eating the Naaru as Alleria Windrunner did with L'ura. _**Neither**_ are particularly appealing.

Velen hums to himself for a moment before slamming the butt of his staff against the ground for a moment. As a pillar of light shoots up into the sky to create a small firework beneath the dome of invisibility, he replies. "I _could_ do it myself, but I do not quite trust you to face K'ure alone."

I look at him, raising a brow. "You don't think I could do it? Or you think I'd ignore your concerns and do something the Light wouldn't approve of?" I ask him.

"Yes." He replies, flatly.

I snort. "Ornery goat."

A small smirk plays at the edges of his lips and we step onto one of the energy bridges connecting Tel'Redor's Zangar caps to the Genedar.

It's a surprisingly short walk from the mushroom to where the mining operation has revealed some of the inner workings of the space ship, given how mind bendingly massive it is. This is after all, the ship that transported hundreds of iterated Eradar civilizations across the stars for 25,000 years. It's dimensions are measured in _miles_. And that's assuming it isn't bigger on the inside than it is on the out, like a freaking TARDIS. We are if course, at the top of the structure, more or less, as I've buried much of it below the Zangar sea like an Iceberg.

As I walk up the bridge, a veritable river of various odd Draenai and obvious priests and paladin rushing up past me, I do a bit of scrying and find to my amusement that the buzz of activity has formed an impromptu Ankh due to the nature of where the bridges are and how work spread. Shaking my head, I begin plotting out how to run this spell. I need a degree or two of separation this time, as going unconscious again from overload is simply not an option. I..._suppose_ I could eat all of the energy myself rather than being a conduit for it like happened the last two times, but I've watched too many fantasy book/movie/game villains pop like a zit when that goes wrong. No thanks. Not until I find out precisely how the successful ones do it.

Besides... that's the point of ritual to begin with. The physical circle and reagent materials are as much to provide distance for the caster as they are amplify, empower and direct what it is the wizard is trying to do. I begin running through thoughts of what I need and comparing it with my memories of Thurm's studies and [Guided by Arcane]. What I come up with is a ritual circle that looks like a Shinto Magatama with two Tomoe. Not a Yin-Yang, a Magatama. The runescript within each of the comets is the same vamperic spell I used earlier to take in the light, and then _very briefly_ the void. The central scythes I fill with symbols and scripts for transmutation. Doing this without a catalyst is difficult and dangerous, but we all survived last time and this time I'm not doing anything complicate and have time to run proper setup.  
I'm interrupted in my plotting by a hand on my shoulder. "They are here, Thurm. It's time."

Lacing my fingers together, I press them out in front of me and elect a series of cracks. Looking out at the sea of faces I immediately loose count at what looks to be enough goat-men for a small pro-football stadium. Showtime. And I curse myself for a fool choosing [Laborer] during character creation.

Casting a spell so my voice can be easily heard without shouting I begin. "ALRIGHT! Ladies! Gentlemen! Today we gather together to defy the sins of the past. Today we wash away the taint forced upon you by your enemies. The Curse of Seethe was a final insult of the Demon Lord Kil'Jaden, for the moment his pawn Gul'Dan launched it upon Shattrath he considered you done and left this world to it's fate! But I say, we will not go gently into that Dark Night! Rage! RAGE Against the Dying of the Light!"

There are a spattering of cheers across the gathered crowds but for the most part there is a sense of muted anger or distrust. Eh, whatever, it doesn't seem to be directed AT me, so I'll take what I can get. "Tough crowd," I murmur sidelong to Velen.

He shakes his head at me. "You get better."

I shrug, set the Grond Stone on the ground and begin casting my spell. The circles and symbols blossom out of my mind, through my hands and spread across the flat surface of the quarried ship. It expands to encompass the crowd with the Stone at the center point where the two Tomoe meet. Streamers of arcane power spread out, snaking through the crowd and offering feelers to the Broken, while herding the priests into the space of the far tomoe. The broken were then herded into the space between the tomoe, leaving the second one empty.

Symbolism is important, after all.

Velen then leaves my side to place himself on the other side of the stone, the light side.

I trigger the spell; the Draenai start channeling the Light, and below us, in the depths of the mountain... the shadow stirs. It starts in slow, but quickly pick up pace as the spell begins to siphon elemental Light from the other side of the ritual. The entire tomoe begins to darken and then raidiate a black miasma, but it doesn't get a chance to spread. The outer edges of the Tomoe act as funnels, channeling the Light and the Void into the stone and it's linked transmutation matrix. The Broken, who have been maneuvered into accepting parts in the transmutation matrix find their bodies wracked by the two competing energies as they're spun together like a mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, I monitor the nether-light reaction, held in careful balance by the arcane of the stone. [Guided by Arcane] warns me one by one when to disconnect each of the broken, and teleport them out of the ritual zone. Timing, unsurprisingly, is important when there are mere seconds clearance between cleansed and popped like a zit.

As the last broken leaves the circle, healed but unconscious, I try to erase the runes drawing in K'ure's shadow and end the spell.

It doesn't work.

The runes for that side of the spell are no longer written in lines of Arcane, power, but gouges of stone where the black power of the void has bored paths into the crystal. Looking over to the other side, I can see the lines on the light side are glistening with mostly white light, only a few violet stars left in the network over there.

I'm not entirely certain, but I think the ritual may just have become self sustaining.

And I have NO idea whether or not that's a good thing.

"Velen," I ask, upping the power the stone is feeding to my personal shield, and altering it's formula slightly to draw in his light. "How much longer do you think your people can hold the other side?"

The ancient seemed to consider for a little while. "The ritual has gone on for about an hour. The younger initiates are long spent, but my anchorites can hold on for twice this long at least."

I nod slowly. "Start filtering more of your people out of the spell if you could, please. I want to see if the dark tomoe weakens, or if it's truly become self sustaining... because that could be bad. Maybe. I think."

The space goat look alarmed, as well he should, but then he calms. "If you cannot control your spell, then I shall purge it. But your idea has merit. I shall begin sending them away."

He turns and begins giving orders. The Prophet doesn't bark them in your typical voice of command, but the priests and paladins around him behave as if he has. Those who look as if they're in danger of falling down, gain a second wind and hastily leave the circle. Those who don't begin to spread out along the edges, and even cross into the arcane section, though those learn their lesson quickly, as arcane streamers seek to add them to the Netherlight forging process. As they start to leave, the light side begins to dim, but the dark side does not. Leery, I leave the dark side for the arcane median. The spell offers me a streamer if power, dark and light coiled around the arcane like a caduceus, which I accept, but reduce the netherlight flow to a minimum.

As it becomes apparent that the dark Tomoe is not going to gutter out as the Light one is beginning too, the line of Light users spreads to encompass the dark mark entirely. Pillars of holy wrath fall from the sky and connect with many of the light users, before jumping from them to the wrong side of the ritual, scouring away the shadow and breaking my runework, one sigil at a time. It takes a bit of work, but in about fifteen minutes the only trace a ritual took place here is the scored and seemingly battle-damaged crystal surface.

Velen stumps up to stand before me, looking slightly winded, and looks past me his eyes glowing. "My people are saved. For the moment. Thank you, Ogre. With only two dead out of thousands, we have much to celebrate."

I shrug, my chest itching from the power I've just consumed. "It's a job."

He huffs and shakes his head. "For which you expect payment. Of course, I am aware. Come then, let us descend. K'ure awaits."

And with that, the gem-like surface cracks, folds and spirals away from us, giving Velen a smooth ramp down into the ship.

Grabbing my stone, I hurry to follow.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

As the prophet and I descend down the ramp into the depths I get the barest twinges of preternatural warning to brace myself before a small body landed awkwardly on by back. There was a scrabbling like paws and then a tug on my hood before the weight settled on my shoulder.

"You're a walking hazard." Young Garrosh pipes into my ear. "For a guy out to save the world, you're a terrible shaman."

I snort, and shift my shoulders, hitching the Grond Stone more securely under my armpit and jostling the brat. "That's probably because I'm a war-mage."

"Nah," the brat replies as two more presences patter up behind us before matching pace just out of my line of sight. "There have been plenty of shaman who were war leaders. That meany Ner'Zhul and the demon Gul'Dan are worse than you, but heroic war-chief shaman are in all the fire-songs. They don't play with the black stuff though. And the purple magic is for baby-eating-Ogres, not healers."

I turn my head to look at him. "I haven't had breakfast yet, you know... Have a seasoning you prefer? I hear roast orc brat is gamy."

The kid sticks his tongue out at me before being snatched off my shoulder by... that's Gorka, isn't it? I can't think of any other orcs who would be allowed in Tel'Redor, but where Gorka's skin was a dark earthy brown, this orc's skin is more like the skin of a plum and with none of the red pox sores. Then, again, the 12 year old in her arms also has a purple arm and splotch rising up his Carmel colored skin. Sort of like a reverse Michael Jackson disease. ...Vitiligo I think.

I lock eyes with Gorka, shifting my gait slightly to keep her in sight without slowing my descent. "You two got in on the cleansing then?"

She nodded. "Father noticed. Heard your warsong. Didn't include us last time,.. We stepped in. We can hear the spirits again. They sob and shiver."

I nodded slowly, taking that in. "The Arcane infusion isn't hindering you?"

"I... don't know." She temporized, dropping Garrosh off to the side. "They whisper, muddled. But I am not meditating."

I turn back and speak over my shoulder. "Work on that as we move. A war-mage needs to be able to cast on the move, regardless their discipline, as safe spots aren't often availible. And be sure which whispers you're paying attention to as well. The shadows of this place have minds of their own."

A faint glow begins over my other shoulder and I turn to give Samaara a smile as the corridor opens up. We're still obviously in the upper reaches of the mountainous ship, but the ramp is now a shimmering transparent force field of arcane energy hanging over a great expanse. To the right are what look like massive Tron style circuit/pipes glow faintly in gold and purple on the walls, while to the right is a scene practically out of the Matrix. A bit of scrying reveals most of the pods to be empty, but there are a few dead and time-locked draenai in them here and there. I mark them with glowing sigils and continue on behind the prophet.

Continuing to observe our surroundings, we come across the next major issue. Water, naturally. The Genedar crash landed on the planet, and that was before I dropped it. The crystal mountain is filling with water. Even in the faint light given off by Samaara and by Velen's staff, I can see the eddies and currents 50 feet below me.

"Thurm," the ancient space goat speaks suddenly, as if reading my mind "If you would please?"

I nod and begin scrying for fish. It takes a bit, but several have been dragged in by the rushing waters. The first thing I got was a sea scorpion, which I reverse summoned back to my ship. The second round was better. A Crescent Saberfish. It looks like a scaly eel, but it's fishy enough for the magic I'm planning. Killing it, I pull strips of scales from the gills and enchant them, before sticking them to everybody's throats. Then, I tear out the various flippers and enchant them, fashioning bracelets from more strips of scaly flesh. "There, water breathing and advanced swimming enchantments." I tell everyone. "I could portal the water out or maintain a shield I suppose, but the portal would take too long to drain a ship this size, never mind the inflow, and shields would leave me more or less tied up and all of you limited to my presence of mind. If something happens you'd need these anyway."

Velen watches amused as I hand out the trinkets and dutifully strings it to his belt. When all of them have their trinkets firmly attached Velen begins to glow brightly and wades into the water without comment. I stuff the fish into my mouth and begin chewing. No time to cook it sadly, but sashimi is a rather popular dish in Japanese restaurants. If they can call raw fish a delicacy, I, as a newly minted Ogre, can deal with having to make a quick snack of it. The bones are prickly against my tongue and throat, but it goes done easy enough and I let myself fall over and into the water.

Opening my mouth as I submerge, my mouth fills with bubbles, but other than it feeling as if I'm in a steam room, I don't have any trouble breathing. There are more splashes and I get to see Samaara treading water and looking constipatedly serious. Velen is still on the ramp, though underwater, and watching us with an amused expression, as Garrosh swims in orbits around him like a curious puppy. Gorka enters with a swan dive and writhes around like a mermaid rather than swimming normally. It's interesting to watch, as it does interesting things to her robes.

_"Are we ready to continue?"_ Velen asks us. _"K'ure awaits in the bowels of the ship, and we've a long way to go." _

The 'sound' isn't. I can hear a garble of burbles as though he's trying to talk while gargling mouthwash, or perhaps speaking Murrglish, but the Arcane Language rune interprets it directly for the group regardless.

I swim towards him and the others follow, our strokes much more powerful than they have any right to be. Good, that means the charms are working. "_Should we go straight down then?_" I ask.

Velen hums. "_No. The ship is broken, but some of the protections still exist; negating them takes much of the miners time. Those inside are stronger where they still function. Follow closely._"

I nod, and join him on the ramp once more. The others do shortly thereafter and we continue down.

I'd chosen the enchantments well, as we found out shortly, when one of the submerged corridors went through a bulkhead. A powerful current rushed through it, forming a twisting train of force, but the enhanced swimming enchantments allowed us to continue as though it were merely a stiff breeze.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Even going downhill, the trip from the top of the ship to the...engine room I guess? at the bottom took several hours. For a ship roughly the size of Mt Fuji, maybe a little smaller, this isn't unreasonable. The real issue will be climbing back up, which is why I intend to teleport out, should the room not be shielded.

The room we find the Naaru in is relatively cramped in comparison to the rest of the ship spaces we'd been through so far. Only thirty feet in diameter and fifty high. The Naaru slumps forlornly on a bowel shaped dais surrounded by seven fitfully glowing purple crystals and intricate scroll-work. The room is filled with an oppressive melancholy that radiates from the elemental construct. Black swirls gush off the three lower right sections of the slowly shifting pieces while the rest of it glows a dim blue green with soft white plasma radiating off the edges. Around the room, orc spirits swarm, hovering in various states. Some glowing with light and health, others wracked with pain, a few gibbering in the corner as they float in and out of the walls.

"_K'ure..._" Velen breathes, speaking as if meeting a friend in an ICU at the hospital. "_I am so sorry we left you here to suffer. Worry not, we are here now._"

_Do not dispair, young one_ the Naaru replies, it's voice filling everybodies minds with the pain of it's own internal conflict. _It could not be helped any more than my own actions these past centuries._ I feel a swish of movement at my side and turn to see the girls both prostrating themselves.

"_Eating the orc's ancestors, you mean?_" I reply, dryly. "_Come into my web, said the spider to the fly._"

The creature drew up in indignation, it's presence shaking the room... and then wilted. As my energies bled away over the centuries, a void slowly grew in my place - IT devoured the souls of those nearby. I watched Helplessly as generations of orc souls were drawn into the vortex. But you... you will end the cycle. I have seen it. The others fear this. You will face great trials should you go down this path, for even now, the Army of Light prepares an expedition in response.

"Tempest keep, right?" I ask, grinning. "Velen would cry out to them when Draenor is torn apart in the coming Apocalypse, but them being here early could be useful. It'd save a lot of Draenai lives for a start. And having the manpower to salvage the Genedar for the war effort before the Netherstorm tears casts this world into the void could only help the cause. ...Mine, and yours."

_Sadly, I will not see it _the creature replied morosely. _You still plan to go through with this? It will be both harder and easier for you regardless your many choices..._

I scowl. "_Tactical choices mechanics again?_" I sigh. "_You're tapping into both Light and Void prophecy, at the moment, right?_" the Naaru chimes, it's mental voice more like a gong than the games classic wind chimes. "_Got a suggestion on which plan I should pursue?_"

The Naaru is silent for several minutes, considering, while Velen watches on, tension clear in every fiber of his frame. There's a swish of water at my side and I catch Gorka moving towards a trio of female spirits that look alot like her.

The water rippled in a powerful wave that pushed everybody back slightly and I could somehow tell that K'ure was talking to everybody separately and privately, so that none of the others could hear what she was saying to _them_.  
_  
Of the four paths before you, the one with the least tribulation involves you devouring my essence as Aleria shall devour L'ura. This will make you powerful enough that only the greatest threats will challenge you. This will change us fundamentally however and it is the option you are most opposed to._

_The path of greatest conflict and closest danger is where you disassemble me and forge weapons and armor for yourself, and later your children. Be wary, however; as attractive as you find this option it will also see you hunted by everyone great and small, many with outrage in their hearts, but mostly with greed. The corruption of the ashbringer will pale in comparison to what you will unleash._

_My preferred path is where you remove my core, and leave the scattered pieces for Velen to purify over the course of the next decade. This however will leave you vulnerable to your enemies who even now collect their own artifacts to counter you._

_Your final option, the one where you intend to advance and evolve your ritual from earlier to turn me into a chromatic elemental god will see you hunted fervently by both the Legion _

_**and**__ the Army Of Light as a heretic, but together we will be able to accomplish many of your schemes which would otherwise fail, either by measure or in their totality.  
_  
Now, it's my turn to consider things meticulously. Chop-shop is out, obviously, because simply put, K'ure has a point. The entire planet is going to swarm me like an adventurer party on their favorite loot pinata if I go that route. Even raid mythic bosses get pwnd pretty regularly if people like their drops. And I purchased [Friend of the Blue Flight], which I suspect would clash mightily with their tendency to steal and stockpile artifacts. Leaving it to Velen? I'd get myself a crew... but K'ure said it'd put me behind the curve on cultivating a survivable level of power. That leaves options 1 and 4. Thing is... I can't imagine _wanting_ to take option 1 before option 4 is well on it's way. Past stage 1 at least.

"_Shall we head for the surface then?_" I ask, nonchalantly. Before anybody can object, I fire off a series of teleport spells.


	6. Chapter 6

When casting teleportation on someone there is a moment, several seconds really, wherein it can be resisted. Where reality is still bent by the effort of you moving from one place to another without crossing the intervening distance and with a little effort of will, you can snap back. In combat situations, this is usually accompanied by a second spell to immobilize the victim of the teleport so that they do not resist, or are resisting the wrong thing, such as an ice-block. For magehunters and warmages though, this is where the Displacement spell comes into effect, allowing a mage to reposition, decoy and back out of unfavorable teleports rapidly.

In the game, it was a godsend of a talent. In this new reality, it's a double bluff.

Firing off teleports suddenly was supposed to result in my party members and I being deposited on my ship with the Naaru in tow, while Velen resisted the sudden 'attack' and ended up being left behind.

What I failed to realize in my haste to action was that K'ure talking to each of us individually, also meant that he was warning Velen of what I might do in any of a variety of possible futures, or even correctly guessing which one I would ultimately choose.

Or maybe he was just too distracted by what else K'ure had to tell him he just didn't have the presence of mind resist, at this point, I'll never know.

What I DO know, however, is that as soon as the gang and I appeared on my ship, Velen; who I had sent back to his room atop the central temple at Tel'Redor; exploded into a massive column of golden light and I (and every draenai in the floating city) received a warning.

_'Beware, brothers and sisters! The Ogre Thurm has kidnapped K'ure and departs with him now aboard the flying ship __**Dutchman**__. Stop him at all costs!'_

With that proclamation, Light surged through the refuge's collected magi-tech systems and burn out the shadow below the surface. It also had a secondary effect of empowering every one of the 12,000 or so survivors of Shattrath to somewhere between Captain America and John Carter of Mars.

As the swarm of Vindicar turned towards me in unison and began to swarm, there was only one thought going through my head: _It is absolutely time to leave._

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

There was a reason, back in Highmaul, that I didn't simply teleport the ship or lift it from the sea in a single swift motion. I had been concerned originally, that years of neglect had made the ships rotten and brittle, and that doing so would damage my claimed property, forcing me to spend a great deal of likely unavailable time and effort repairing it.

That concern had weight to it.

While the damage is far less catastrophic than I'd expected, due mostly to the numerous recent repairs from other accrued damage, I still have a fair amount of work to do now. The Keel has cracked clean in two, and the fore and aft sections of the ship are currently hanging off the carbon fiber core by what is, for all intents and purposes...splinters. I can't even reverse time on the hull to restore the damage, because that would end up with us teleporting back to Tel'Redor.

Groaning, I sketch out a simple scrying spell in the air, and make certain that none of my current crew have begun falling to their deaths. Samaara, Gorka, Garrosh and Mennu are aboard, but Gortag isn't anywhere to be found on the ship or the airspace beneath it. A few gestures and a rune to use Gorka as a conduit and I find the old shaman back at Tel'Redor, sitting alone on a...spore whale. He's keeping it calm and stationary with his powers while he communes with the other elements at the edge of Tel'Redor's shields, just out of sight of most of the refuge's frenetic activity.

_'Gortag'_ I whisper, poking him with a small force construct. _'Can you spare a moment?'_ I project to him. He grunts and a series of five small spirits form out of the air around him. One is made of Mud, another of fog, the third steam, then cool water and finally an orc who looks a rather lot like Gorka, only translucent. The spirit puts a finger up to her lips with one hand, and shoos me away with the other.

Not now, I guess.

Regardless, I set up an illusion to hide him and a force construct to float the whale further out to sea. Sealing the three spells with a blood cloaked beacon and accompanying slash on my wrist, I break the scrying spell and return to my broken ship.

Next order of business... Time to patch up my ship. Looking over at the Naaru floating off to the side of the mid-mast, my eye twitched at the dark miasma oozing slowly out of the lower right sections of the crystal being, burning my deck like a fast acting rust. The girls were looking at it pensively, occasionally glancing at me with unreadable expressions. Gorka was perhaps visibly calmer and less troubled than Samaara, but whatever the pair of them had talked with K'ure about they didn't seem comfortable with it's presence here, and thus were unlikely to attack me while I took care of it.

Getting to my feet, I groaned. My body held the soft ache of a good workout from my over-use of magic so-far today, but I would need a lot more before we were stabilized. Setting the Grond-stone down on the other side of the mast from the Naaru, I began transferring the spell load from myself to a ritual circle on the deck. As the arcane writing spread, Mennu picked his way out from below decks, looking shaky.

"So it's true then?" He grunted, looking at the elemental construct. "I remember when K'ara exploded" he continued muttering. "Velen saved who he could, but my crew was never the same after..." He turns to me. "You know there is a reason we left this one alone in the ruins for two hundred and fifty years."

I nod, trying not to let my attention waver from the casting while I responded. "The injury. While the light may eat the dead, the void isn't picky about devouring a soul while it's still living."

He looked at me incredulously "And so you thought it was a good idea to bring one on board?"

"I'm not stupid," I glanced at him quickly "I'm going to de-activate it in a minute."

He gives me a derisive laugh. "And how do you intend to do that?"

I give him a slow toothy smile. "I'm going to rip out its heart." I told him. "With my bare hands."

My four guests shuddered involuntarily.

_Do not despair, children of light_ the gong-like voice of the injured Naaru piped in _children of earth and fire. The runemaster's touch will not harm me. When the ordeal is over, he and I shall both be stronger for it. Worry instead about what comes after. The Betrayer still requires a sacrifice to open the way to the new world. Time is a river, but his alternatives will have manifold consequences all their own. _I nodded solemnly, nonetheless [Irritated] at K'ure, and finish my casting.

The three pieces of the ship are now fully supported, weightless and co-ordinated in their movement for the moment I decided where to move us. For the moment, we were holding over Orunai, a fel burnt husk of a former Draenai town, and by the look of it, forward base during the Orcs rampage from the Throne Of Kil'jaden. The land below us is blighted and cracked, small rivers of green power visible even from as high up as we are. Off in the distance to the east the trail continues, a black and green trail you could probably see from space, surrounded by a red desert that was quickly pushing out the marshlands and jungle of the Tanaan peninsula. To the southwest in the distance was the ruins of Shattrath, and to the northwest, past Tel'redor, lay Stonespire... and my other artifact.

Each of the destinations had their merits and potential. Shat and the amazingly still mostly in-tact Achindoun held a replacement source for Draenai tech to upgrade my ship with. Something I had sacrificed in my hasty retreat with the Naaru. Stonespire, obviously, held my missing stone, and though Ogri'la was a neat outcome for the future, I wasn't all that keen on leaving a larger and better prepared city of Ogres to cause problems down the line. Hell, if I could reclaim my stone and beat up a few of them, that'd fill out my crew requirements and possibly even solve the [Traitor lvl 3] hunting party issues.

...nah, no way it'd end up being that easy.

Following the Horde itself was something I'd have to do eventually, but there was a question whether it was something wise to do _first_, after repairing my ship. It'd certainly allow me to keep abreast of [Murderhobo lvl 3], but it'd also be putting myself in easy reach of scary mo-fo's like Gul'Dan, Cho'Gall and Teron'Gor. Honestly, the best way to deal with them is flyby's.

Still... The Naaru did have a point. Gul'dan would need an alternate source of power to open the portal. And there were any number of ways that could be accomplished. Some of which could benefit me, or even Draenor as a whole.

Something to put aside for later.

Walking away from the stone and standing in front of the crystal wind chime I cracked my shoulders. "Ready for this then?" I asked it. "Not going to resist, are you?"

_You know I mus_... I took that as a no and grabbed the kite shaped reliquary, forcing the other discrete parts in different directions with waves of arcane force. I was going to feel this later, but I couldn't simply _take_ K'ure's heart, then overwhelming the creature suddenly was the next best thing. Hopefully less catastrophically than Illidan with Xe'ra; I didn't hate this wind-chime like I did that lying bitch.

The deck of my ship lit up like a solar flare as the might of a Naaru clashed with the arcane power of a Titan artifact. Within it's light my mind was attacked, showing me my past, Thurm's life and the deal i had made with the Baphomet impersonator. I was shown myself with all illusions stripped, all self deceit banished and denied, the truth of my potential and what was being wasted by my own will. The darkness was there too, whispering to my about all the things I could have done, but failed to do, and reveling in the truth of what I had done to get myself in this position. Thurm wasn't just some persona constructed by my deal with a demon, but rather an Ogre from another reality who's soul had been consumed by my arrival. That he too had made a deal with the same ROB decades earlier to be young again at the expense of his unintelligent thug of a brothers soul notwithstanding.

Apart from the psychic attack, seeking to weaken my resolve and disrupt my focus, there was also a physical assault against my shields and ship. While the Light, as the literal primeval force of creation, could not harm directly, it could easily create things that _were_ harmful. Things it's dark side could corrupt and degenerate from glowing sharp forms into writing indistinct monstrosities that further ate at reality. Reality, which was the alpha and omega of my particular magic.

Then with a heave and a pop, it all stopped. I flew back a dozen feet, the core in my hands and the pair of us rolling towards one of the gaps in the deck, sliding to a stop dangerously close to over-balancing and falling to the ground below.

I snorted; mind reeling from what had just happened and dealing with it through absurdities; as if I couldn't cast 'feather light' and save myself.

Not everybody else had the same luck though. Little Garrosh was half crushed between several sections of Naaru on the aft section of my ship, now completely shorn from the rest of the vessel. Samaara was holding onto one of the railings with one hand, her face wracked with pain as Gorka held herself to the ship by the poor Draenai woman's tail. Mennu was thrown completely off the ship and was cackling madly as in-tact sections of Naaru fell around him, like shooting stars.

Groaning to myself, I began casting as quickly as I could, leveraging [Guided by Arcane] to it's fullest to avoid mistakes. My girls were lifted from the edge, back onto the ship. Sections of Naaru were moved onto opposite sides of the deck and Reverse Time was cast on the young orcs body to wipe away his injuries. Mennu was reclaimed via teleport, a tricky endeavor involving shifting variables to adjust for canceling his trajectory and momentum when placing him back on deck. And finally, I spent almost an hour scrying and gathering the fallen pieces of K'ure, still miraculously unbroken, each and every one.

The entire incident almost made me reconsider my resolution about not scrapping the wind-chime for parts.

"Everybody alright?" i asked as I finally finished gathering the last missing piece of Naaru, and laid it out on the deck. Mennu had been laughing quitely to himself, his eyes wide ever since the initial contest started, but aside from minor injuries none of the other three seemed any the worse for wear.

"We are alive bel..." Gorka cut herself off, and put a hand to her head. "We are fine. The Elder one showed us our deaths. Ones that would have been. Those that may yet be. It... puts things in perspective. Makes one question their sanity."

"Will my sister really lead our people to ally with the Orcs?" Samaara blurted out.

I stare at her blankly for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "K'ure thinks the Iron Horde is still going to happen then?" I laugh some more, but darker this time. "Yeah, Y'rel would have done something like that had she not died at Karabor and had Grommash refused the blood of Mannoroth. Velen would have sacrificed his own life for that future... except that wasn't in the cards for the prime timeline. The Horde NEEDS to invade Azeroth. The Legion won't be defeated otherwise. Nor will the Old Gods." I look at her, sympathetically. "Remind me to introduce you to the Bronze Dragonflight some time, perhaps we can arrange for you to visit that timeline. It would give you both closure."

I shake my head. "Later though." With a series of gestures and imagined rune-formula I pull the ship back together and begin converting the splintered bits into carbon-fiber. Given carbon makes up a good chunk of woods total mass, right after water, I'll probably end up doing this to the whole ship sooner or later. For now though, its a series of ugly black scars. Deceptively, perversely, durable scars... but scars.

Repairs completed, Naaru disassembled and stored, crew mostly managed, I set about taking care of the small things.

Like food and fresh water. One of the many reasons for abandoning this world, honestly.

When Gul'Dan accepted Kil'Jaden's offer of power and took his revenge on the Primal Elements, it caused rivers above and below ground to reroute themselves, dry up, stagnate, flood and become polluted with heavy metals. Those heavy metals were released by the planets geological activity going insane, raising and lowering land at random, forming volcanoes, causing earthquakes and tsumani and releasing poisonous hot springs in random locations where the water bubbling up from the mantle would normally be filtered to form veins of ore and groundwater reservoirs. Weather patterns changed with all the subtlety of a hollywood disaster movie and wild fires raged, destroying habitats and farmland all over the place. Generally speaking, it was the Apocalypse.

For a tribal society built around hunting and foraging, you can understand how this made the orcs desperate and willing to go to completely insane lengths and believe totally illogical justifications offered to them by dubious parties. For me and my crew, this would mean a week of foraging for mere days of supplies anywhere but specific pockets of protected space around Nagrand.

Such as Osho'Gun.

Which I had just ripped out of the earths crust and dropped in the middle of the Zangar sea.

That's why I cheated.

Scrying is a beautiful thing. You can clear entire square miles of land in minute detail in minutes. Want berries? With the right runic algorithm you can find every berry bush in 100 miles, sort them by type, toxicity, ripeness and selectively teleport strip the morsels into your larder in under an hour. Meat? Every animal puts out an energy signature. It's worse than using a drone with a thermal camera. And that's before you get to magically active meat-bags. Vegetables and tubers? Same thing. Now, if I were a bit more responsible, I'd leave behind a spell to encourage growth, procreation and maybe fix some of the damaged natural systems. It's what my local shaman-girl admonishes me to do, but the problem is, until someone goes into the ley lines and strains the fel taint out, nothing's really going to get better regardless what either of us might otherwise do.

Seeking, sorting, storing and enchanting those food stuffs takes the rest of the day, but by the time Mennu gets over his mental breakdown, we've stored enough provisions for the five of us (and Gortag) to live on for the next year. This despite my own Ogreish appetite.

My dreams are filled with memories of Thurm's life. I get a sense of his highs, his lows, his struggles and what sort of person he was; violent, brutal and bigoted even by my lax standards, but cringily liberal by those of his society.  
I watch on in my human form whilst the great lug stares down at me accusingly.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The ship, nay, the entire continent, is woken the next morning to the shock-wave of a violent explosion. There was no warming, no flash of all encompassing nuclear light as I awoke, covered in sweat, but it didn't take long for lights to appear. Rubble from the explosion lights up the night with smoke trails and secondary explosions, sections of building moving so fast that they ignite the air itself like shooting stars. Several smaller pieces, about the size of an orc smash into the ships shields, rocking us and making a sound like a gong, but we're far enough away from the initial event that nothing significant happens to us.

More important, is what happened to cause this.

I approach the railing at a run, preparing my scrying spells, but someone has already beaten me to the punch it seems. Samaara, as a Rangari, is an early riser and light sleeper. She was on deck to watch the sunrise and though she didn't see the inidital event, it was too far away, she was able to deduce what had happened from the vector of the blast and our relative positions. This, even before the debris started raining down on us. I find her personally, screaming and crying in anguish, a horned skull clutched to her chest, a dark aura flickering around her.

Cloaking my arms in a tight shield, I reach through the writhing void and grab her shoulders. "Samaara! What is it? What just happened?"

She continues sobbing incoherently, but the aura gutters out and she grabs ahold of my waist like a vice, the skull still gripped in one hand, it's horn digging into my kidney. "Auchindoun." she finally chokes out. "The orcs have hit Auchindoun, the place where we bury our dead!" She gestures wildly at small bits of debris, still falling around us. "That falling rubble? It's skeletons. OUR ancestors! Those savages should know better! The last five thousand years of Draenai were interred there when it became clear the Genedar would not fly again." After that, there wasn't anything more coherent than a curse word for the next hour.

Gorka made herself scarce out of respect, while Garrosh, oddly, brought her a blanket and allowed the Draenai woman to vent her rage and pain at him while I got to work.

It doesn't take long to figure out what happened. The elemental Lord Murmur is the first thing I see upon scrying the tomb city. Standing up through the center of the great dome humming discordant notes of a hundred competing bass and sonic melodies as the world liquefies around him. Standing against the beast, grinning like a loon from both heads, is Cho'Gall. In one fist, Gall grips the blackened heart of a void lord, in the other, a stream of green fire, which he has lassoed around the core of the savage elemental _GOD. _Around him orcs explode with each of Murmur's strikes, their bones fragmenting and tearing them apart in a shower of gore with each strike. But not Cho'Gall. Like Kratos from God of War, he grapples with the titanic deity, dragging the soul of the beast out and feasting on it.

Strike after strike, Murmur, the most destructive arcane elemental in the great dark, known in the fluff text as a casual destroyer of worlds, feeds the warlock prodigy. It's almost comical to watch, really. An object lesson on why the Legion is so dangerous. On why when I encounter Cho'Gall, I'm not a coward to just cut and fucking run. Like a tick or tape-worm, that tiny little ogre latches on to an entity he can't possibly hope to match...and drains him dry. Such is the power if Fel and Void. Resistance is useless, your struggles feed him.

I slap myself as hard as I can across the face.

Yeah, no, that sort of thinking is what will really kill me. I knew this was going to happen, but in the original timeline, it was supposed to be the Bleeding Hollow summoning an army of void critters to resist the alliance invasion of Outland that triggered the event. The void, having been drained from D'ore in that event causes a rift through which Murmur enters the world, spreading the bones of the Draenai dead across Telador creating the bone wastes and ending the conflict between the Setthek Arakoa and Achunai deathspeakers over who controls the fortress. This time, there were only the Achunai and another seven thousand refugees from Shattrath inhabiting the catacombs.

Against the gathered forces of Warsong, Twilights Hammer, Highmaul, Bladefist and Bleeding Hollow.

Fuck.

Well, at least I now know what the replacement for Gul'Dan's dark Portal sacrifice will be.

I had foolishly assumed that since it had been defensible before, it would be so again, and in doing so, I passed up the chance to keep the Draenai on my side while still gaining a Naaru loot-box and denying my main rival a chance to power up.

It seems I have work to do.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The time for waiting was over.

Scratching a portal ring into the air in front of me, I tore a hole in space and stepped onto the Mushroom where Gortag was communing with the elements. "I have need of you." I told him, stepping into the circle of five spirits and picking the old man up bodily. As the mans allies moved to intercede, I fix them with a glare. "You're coming too, don't worry. Hup, hup, lets get a move on." Then dragged the quickly waking man through the hole in reality.

As the elementals followed me from the sea to the air, they changed, taking on slightly different aspects. The muddy earth elemental became a twister filled with debris, the steaming elemental of fire became a crackling ball of lightning and the water elemental upon leaving it's own sphere of influence became a cloud while the misty air elemental turned transparent and caused the wind across the deck to howl and form vortex at random. This had the secondary effect of filling the ships single sail and causing my mast to groan under the force.

I dump Gortag at his daughters feet and move to begin reinforcing the mast, while releasing the spell keeping us anchored to a specific point. In this case, the sky above Orunai. By the time I finish that, Gortag has fully recovered. He and Gorka are deep in conversation with the spirit woman, and I decide to listen in for a moment rather than bulling in.

"And then our son drove the blade in and everything stopped. That's when the dark spi"

Whatever she was talking about though was cut off as the spirit put her hand on gorka's lips. "Daughter, later, the Ogre-lord is listening in."

I scowl at the undead briefly, before schooling my features. "How far are you in reconnecting with the elements, Gortag?" I ask, gruffly. "The attack on Auchindoun has shortened our timetable."

The old orc grimaced. "They are weak and confused. The great primals are gone entirely, consumed by Gul'Dan and Terron'Gor's burning blade clan has set Farahlon ablaze. If I could bring these four to the throne of Elements, perhaps we could begin to heal the land, but Taiga tells me you have other plans?"

I frown. The throne of elements isn't a bad idea. I had been planning on Shattrath and Skyreach, but there was no reason I couldn't make a third stop.

"I need you and your daughter to infuse elementals into the lower limbs of the Naaru, but if this worlds elementals are unsuitable, that can wait. Nobundo will... wait, no, I've already healed the Draenai of Tel'redor, there's no guarantee he'll even hear the call now. Hmm..." I massage my the bridge of my nose and think. Yes, that could work. It's more altruistic than is my nature, but not without personal benefits and definitely ambitious. "Right, quest accepted, but I'm putting it on the back burner for now. Work with your elementals and we'll see about completion if there's time. For now, we need to get to Skyreach."

I turn around and leave the three of them. A bit of scrying shows me that the wind is pushing us in the right direction. Whether that's happenstance or the elementals being prescient I don't know, but it'll take too long at this pace. The spells weave themselves into my mind and the ship almost instinctively at this point, and suddenly the ship is speeding south. We'll arrive at sundown now, and that... that may just be enough.

That done, I move across the deck, collecting the scattered pieces of K'ure. The darkened sections are the lower three legs on the right side. They smoke darkly, lacking a release for their festering mytic wound and touching them threatens to cripple my arm. I wrap them in wooden planks instead and use magic to move them instead.

Carefully, I lay out the pieces of the light-god around my grond stone, the stone taking the place of the absent core. Adding the core would re-activate the Naaru, and that would be...bad...if done prior to completing the operation.

Naaru are interesting creatures. On cursory inspection they're light elementals, and they like to talk themselves up as being gods. If that were true, their entire physical form would be made of elemental essence. Powerful enchantments use only a pinch of essence in their construction and entire magical beasts usually only have a few grams throughout their bodies. This would simultaneously support and contradict their claims of being elementals... but credibly support their relative godhood. However, when observed under magical perception they appear instead to be a self editing spell-form of immense complexity tied to a mere crystalline vessel.

If the latter conclusion is more accurate, I'm in some relatively hot water. See, I don't understand Light or Void runes except in the vaguest terms. Arcane is a child of both elements, but fundamentally different from both of them. I can interpose the sections of spell-craft from one area to another, but that may just be equivalent to moving the pieces physically and I'll have accomplished nothing. If the former explanation is the truth of it, I can set up a spell-form to transfer the dark essence from one limb to another easily enough, but exposing the area to power that thick without containment is asking for an explosion.

Fortunately... there is a third option. When stuck between two evils, making yourself a third option is always the best.

T'uure, the Ashbringer and Lights Wrath were all formed from void fallen naaru. Darkened by expending their natural energies, they were, naturally, restored by dozens of powerful priests literally pounding the vessels with the right spells. That, more or less, is what I intend to do now. The lower three limbs are dark? Fine, I'll fill them with light stolen from pieces I _want_ darkened. In this case, the right side of the Naaru's "face".

Placing the six pieces together in their own circle I begin the process, essentially 'vacuuming' the light from one side to the other with a modified version of the absorption spell I'd used earlier to add the Paladins offering to my shields. The six shards lift off the deck and begin to hover in the air. It takes a while, and a lot of power, but eventually light from the 'face' begins to transfer to the 'legs' in a trio of beams. As the rays strike the legs, darkness begins to waft off of them in a choking miasma. This activates the second part of the spell, drawing off the shadow and wrapping it around to back-fill for the power leaving the 'face'.

Grinning like a loon, I carefully extract the pieces from the circle and test them, as best I _can_, for stability. That done, I lay them back out on the deck in their proper places.

Gleefully, I select the left side of the face, and the ahnk that makes up the nose and brow. This time, I don't want to allow the ahnk to darken, but I do want to transfer it's light to the left side fragments of the 'face'. Instead, I intend to fill the void with Arcane power from the Grond Stone. As with the story of Anzu, succeeding here is crucial to maintaining balance in a Naaru corrupted by the void. Fail here, and the face will continue to leak corrupting dark power until it's eaten enough souls or been attacked by enough priests to satiate the 'god'.

The spell starts like the last one did, but faster. Faster doesn't mean better though, as the ahnk resists, trying to transform into void as the light leaves it, and reject the arcane power. Cracks appear in the crystal structure and I begin to cut off the spell.

A comforting chill, like an autumn breeze pierces through my shoulder and I turn from the spell to see the ghost Taiga, resting a hand there. "_Give it your energy, ogre-lord. Spirit is the heart of stability. That's what it wants... don't stop._"

I nod slowly and return to the spell, inserting myself alongside the Stone. Immediately the cracks stop spreading and begin to heal. Purple begins to overwhelm the inky black wisps and suddenly the head of the Naaru is blazing with soft violet energy. "Thank you, spirit." I rumble. "You are Gorka's mother?"

She smiles ruefully. "Gortag's. I am Gorka's... how do you say... great-mother?"

"Ah..." I reply intelligently.

"Finish corrupting the great spirit." she continues harshly, "You have more time than you imagine, but why would I stand between you and the purification of my world?"

I offer the spirit a raise brow and reply "Indeed..."

The pair of us stare at each other for several minutes until I blink and she huffs and turns away. "When we arrive at the throne, I shall teach you what is needed, but your true education shall take place in the next world, not this one. Be ready, my daughter shall keep you on your toes."

"Your _grand-_daughter."

She huffs and turns away. "Your language is frustrating," she barks out and floats off.

I shake my head. Well, at least she's useful.

It takes the rest of the day but I finish turning the rest of the Naaru's parts, sans the core, purple. The right side of the 'face' is glowing bright enough to be the noonday sun and I have to keep it off the deck or risk the wood springing back to life and growing, but it's done. This may seem unimportant, or perhaps unbalanced, but it is, in fact, perfect for what I'm about to do.

Our destination of Skyreach is currently uninhabited, a result of the Bladefist and Bleeding Hollow clans throwing the cities inhabitants into the pools of Seethe. They manipulated the resentful Arakoa outcasts into helping them do this as a means of circumventing the Adherents Sun and Moon cannons, great laser arrays set upon the highest peaks that allowed them to utterly kick the Horde's ass, despite all of their legion granted power ups. These lasers were powered by the Holy Light itself, and instantly purified any orc or outcast the spotlight shone over with... explosive results.

Though the arrays, cities and knowledge to make such wonderful weapons was lost in the attack, the light remains thick and heavy on the area. Far thicker however, is the power within the pools below.

THIS is my target... and the reason for the grave imbalance in my Naaru. Cho'Gall consumed Murmur and grabbed his own fallen-Naaru? Well then, I intend to consume the power of both places and make MY Naaru equal to the new level cap. Thing is... there's much more void here than there is light. Theoretically, things should equal themselves out.

We arrive just as the sun strikes the horizon. I slot the freshly filled arcane heart into K'ure and step back as the pieces gather themselves together.

The light begins from the core, spreading out in violet spider webs to the other pieces. Each of those touched begins to rise slowly, swirling around the slowly lifting core as Naaru normally do, but then the lines of arcane lettering touch the light and dark sides of the 'face' and space around the chandelier buckles and shudders. Waves of power buck and heave as the light emitted by all 21 pieces strobes brighter and brighter until nothing can be seen of the struggle but after-images scored onto my retina.

Blind, I quickly weave a simple spell, connecting the Naaru and the Stone and there's a sound like a thunderclap.

"_Be healed, child of worlds._" The voice of the K'ure rings in my head, this time, sounding like a violin rather than wind chimes or a gong. My optic nerves itch and suddenly I can see again.

I look at it, and the thing looks stable. Sort of. It kinda reminds me of a two sided drama mask.

"You know what's next?" I ask it.

"Yes." K'ure replies. "I bring balance. Stay within the ship; this will be more than you can handle. The volume of power alone will, as you say 'pop you like a zit'. and at your current level of cultivation, you'll accomplish about as much."

My face turns black with the blood of the rage-blush. "No need to rub it in. I'm just getting started."

K'ure hums pleasantly, like a bow being pulled across cello strings, and begins to descend towards the writing hollow, a valley at the foot of the Pools. The valley sits at the nexus between Setthek Hollow, Dreadtallon mountain and the Terace of Dawn. A meeting point of the three feather gods dominions. As K'ure lands, arcane scripture explode across the lower peninsula, covering a diamond shaped third of the subcontinent in the blink of an eye.

What happens next is much slower.

First, the tendrils of violet power reach into the hollow, tentacles of purple power reaching out for the pools. The touch and jerk back as if burned repeatedly, but eventually settle into one pool after another. As this happens, complex circles rise up around the pools and they begin to steam as though boiling. At first, I worry the Naaru is rejecting the plan and attempting to cleanse the pools by force, but as the crew and I watch, the steam begins to collect along the tendrils and flow up them like liquid in a pipette.

Next, arcane runes begin to spread up the spire reaching, and then replacing, the Terrace. A wire-frame of first the city, and then a giant set of mirrors, like an exposed telescope, form atop the pillar and then rays lance out from it. The beams bounce from peak to peak, connecting to the dozens of other spires that made up the Arrakoa's post-apexis kingdom.

As the beams lighting up the spires begin to clad themselves in golden light, the expansion of the spell into the fens of Setthek hollow speeds up rapidly. Power begins flowing into the hollow at a rate where you don't even need to be magically gifted to sense the currents, and trying to scry the area is literally blinding.

Strangely though, K'ure isn't growing in response to this influx of power. Instead, the ley lines are becoming faintly visible as the Nether-light forging process dumps massive amounts of elemental order into the stream.

The process continues until dawn, when the entire zone, roughly a third the size of India, is lit up with the biggest damn arcane circle this world has probably ever seen. As the sun peaks over the horizon, the power recedes before it, fading as if the event had never happened. With it the new dawn erases the murky red-black haze of the wind-serpent swamps and the spires themselves blow away like dust in the wind.

The Spires of Arrak have become little more than a wrinkled peninsula covered in small mountains and thousands of valleys.

From those valleys, a cloud arises. With the rustling of a thousand wings, K'ure rises back to the ship with an honor guard of dire-ravens. No longer looking like hunched, mange feathered raptors, the birds are sleek blue-black and, dare I say, majestic. The fly around the ship in a gigantic hurricane of oversized buzzards the arcane Naaru at their center.

"Looks like you've found some friends!" Garrosh laughs over the din. "Feather-head!"

I roll my eyes and watch as K'ure lands, and Samaara moves up to stroke the neck of one of the deadly corvids.

"Get me a mount?" I shout after her. The Rangari looks back at me and a small smile graces her lips. She nods, and I give her a thumbs up. She tentatively returns the gesture and then summons a piece of cleft-hoof from my larder to feed the beast.

"To shadowmoon, child of worlds?" Kure asks.

I tilt my head and stare at the arcane god. "I was thinking Shattrath actually. It's the confluence of the worlds ley lines."

I'm not sure _**how**_, but K'ure _shrugged_. "Shattrath would indeed reach the entire world, but doing so would also alert Gul'dan to our activities. I have many habits to break before I am ready to follow you into battle, and it is more important that he open the portal than that we cleanse this world." it explained simply, its voice reminiscent of Cannon in D Minor.

I nod slowly and offer a raised brow. "You can handle absorbing fel then?"

"The eyes of Light and Void both have ways to reintegrate the power, so long as they are not overwhelmed. Being a powerful being of arcane will actually make it easier to drain from the landscape, as it will seek me out on it's own, where it would flee from a bright Light and cower before the greater void."

I nod. "Let's get to it then. The hand of Gul'Dan? Karabor has better ley lines, but we don't have a reserve source of light."

"Velen is rather upset with you..." the Naaru mused. "Though if you demonstrated a will to cleanse Karabor, there is much he may forgive."

I hum myself. "Any loot there?"

The Naaru sighs, sounding now like a bass. "There is Eye of the Storm."

My eyes go wide and a grin spreads across my face. "An Ata'maal crystal? Well why didn't you say so! What the hell are we waiting for? Tally HO!"


	7. Chapter 7

My enthusiasm to acquire one of the more powerful artifacts from this universe aside, we did not immediately teleport into Shadowmoon or the Hand Of Gul'Dan. My crew made themselves busy with taming a flight of Dire Ravens as per my request and _**I**_ began scrying our way in.

When you're talking in the scale of sub-continents, shadowmoon isn't all that far from the spires. The two regions actually share a boarder on the other side of the Setthek Swampland. A few hundred miles of snake infested fens, only recently cleansed of terror inducing shadow-blood corruption and you hit a sudden cliff. The land rises sharply into a series of shelves, into which the shadowmoon orcs carved ramps and switchbacks. Atop the ridge is a zone called the Pillars of Fate. In the past, it was sacred to the Orcs for being the place of the shadow of death. Warlords of Draenor connected it to K'ara's landing, but Burning Crusade had the area infested with Arakoa trying to awaken an Old God. Which one is the retcon, or if the difference is more based on something intrinsic to the split timeline, I have no idea, but it _should_ be in the range of what I...K'ure, cleansed just a last night.

The reason the Pillars are in any way important to me is because just below them is Zeth'Gor, or as it's now known, The Fortress of Anguish; one of the Horde's strongholds. It and Karabor are the most likely spots for holdouts, still manning the area while Gul'Dan gathers the Horde in Hellfire for the grand-invasion. They will be my primary impediments for the current plan, and thus where I'll need to concentrate my energies.

As the air distorts in front of me, forming an image of the area I'm scrying, a childish scream of delight and a chorus of indignant squawks sound from the railing of the ship. I look away briefly and see Garrosh riding cowboy on one of the horse sized ravens as it tries to flap away and shake him off. Gorka has a pained look on her face, one eye open, the other closed as she and her father glow off to the side. I smirk and turn away from the trio. My last observation before turning back to the task at hand is of Samaara, leading one of the great birds below decks, with one hand on it's beak, and the other stroking it's coat like a horse.

My perspective became that of a bird, soaring over the landscape, heading steadily eastward. Swamp, fens, marsh, the shadows no longer writhe, the air is no longer a dusty red like an Arabian haboob, it almost looks...healthy. As my vision flies I catch glimpses of figures forming streams and clumps throughout the landscape. I pause, taking a closer look at them, and find the stooped, haggard, almost emaciated forms of birdmen. Probably the Skettis, remnants of the Adherents thrown into the pools by the Horde after the Outcasts silence their Solar Cannons.

I dismiss them and move on. My spell is noticed, and a small commotion arises from the cursed fowl, but by the time they can do anything about it, I'm already miles away.

As I proceed though, things begin to look progressively worse. Sections of marsh are blackening and curling in on themselves like streaks of blood poisoning. Green fire descends from the ridge, wispy and ethereal, like a poisonous vamperic fog. It's almost funny to think about, but the void was a protecting for the region before I removed it. A directly blasphemous statement to the ears of more or less anyone else. The arcane flood I'd... K'ure'd recently created was resisting, forming translucent barriers, but the chaos-order interaction at the edges is actually making the destruction worse. If only there were a way to...smooth out the two powers? I shake my head, no, Light and Life are creative chaos, fel is destructive chaos. It's simply diametrically opposed to arcane's creative order. I'll think about it later.

My sight continues on eastward and things begin to change rapidly. Plant-life dies, the earth itself becomes soiled and rotten. As we approach the grand mountain in the center of the region, the desolate stone itself splits, revealing neon green veins of congealed magic. And around the veins, reality weakens. Time stutters, skipping moments, sending things back and forth like a laggy server, freezing or moving sluggishly in some places while speeding up enough to turn a boar to ash in moments in others. Distance bends and folds and light itself changes speed and direction almost at whim. By one of the cracks there's...a creature. I can't describe it more accurately than that. It starts as something approximating a squirrel but it's body parts shift and warp constantly becoming one thing and then another. It's worse than an acid trip. Other entities around the rifts seem more_...stable_...keeping their original forms but with grey charred skin, tumors of congealed fel power and random assortments of calcified stone. Sometimes its spikes, other times it's their hooves or and teeth. Most often,.. what is it with _chaos_ and giving everything **rams horns**?

It makes no fucking sense.

Though I suppose that's chaos for you. It denies expectations. If you think it's going to be crazy it's consistent, if you think it's going to be consistent it'll do literally anything else.

If it weren't more or less consistently **_evil_** it'd be my favorite ace. Chaotic good seems to be Druid exclusive.

I shake my head and begin scanning the surrounding area.

Before "The Hand" erupted from the center of the valley, the area had been a Draenai city, set stop a plateau. Embaari, the breadbasket of Karabor. The name is sort of ironic when one considers English homophones but it's probably a coincidence as far as the Draenai were concerned. "The Hand" raised itself through the co-operative rage of the elemental Fury's whom Gul'Dan had tried to consume at the Throne of Elements. The event nearly broke the Horde, convincing them their elements hated them for fighting the Draneai, but before that realization could congeal on their minds, Gul'dan improvised a ritual to drain the titanic fused elemental and use it's life force to fuel the strength of the Horde for their assault on Karabor.

Now it stands as a monument to the favor the elements bestow upon the Shadowmoon parasite.

A quick scan of the area reveals nothing, but paranoia gets the better of me, and I detect movement in the ruins of Embaari. A small group of helboars roam around the buildings and following them I can find several robed orcs. They notice something and I move my perspective to a more discrete location. As the warlocks come out, they begin grunting and I realize as more orcs appear out of the rubble that my rune of translation isn't working across the vast distances.

The orcs don't seem to know what's going on, but they knew _something_ was happening.

Well... time to satisfy their curiosity.

Space collapses around the necks and waist of several shaman, forming blades of deformed reality that tore them apart. It's fast enough, the ones I could target don't even have time to react. The yearning itch of [Murderhobo] vanishes from the back of my mind, leaving a vague feeling of satisfaction and I move on to my next targets. The guards reflexes are phenomenal as they dodge a barrage of arcane missiles that pour down on them from my scrying eye. A bit of concentration started spinning up a forked lightning as the arcane barrage ended and 4 of the twelve warriors fell, but then my vision was filled with green flesh and fel power broke my spell, forcing me to dodge and shield against a gout of emerald flame that rebounded across my spell.

As it turned out, I hadn't entirely managed to dodge, and the flame stuck to my hood like emerald napalm. I quickly shrug it off, disrobing, cursing, and wove a small spell, crossing a shield and inverted arcane explosion to suppress, crush and neutralize the counterattack.

Ooookaay... So Scry and Die isn't an "I Win" button. Should have remembered that, it's not as though there haven't been ingame quest-event warnings. Those had all been from caster's though, most definitely _**not**_ warriors. That's why I'd made the warlocks priority targets, after all.

Well, live and learn. Scry from max casting distance.., got it.

As for my hood, poor thing now had holes. Big ones. With a sigh, I made a mage blade cut away the burnt parts, then evened it out, turning it into a high necked collar. As I put it back on, a hand lands on my shoulder.

"Is everything alright, friend?" a gruff voice asked.

I turn to see Mennu and nod to him. "I was scouting our next port of call."

The Draenai artificer looked down at the burnt scraps of hide on the deck and kicked them. "Not the most pleasant place, I take it?"

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." I told him with not quite fake seriousness. He raises his eyegrows at me, asking for more and I reply with a smug smirk pulling at the corners of my mouth. "Karabor, friend. We're going to raid The Black Temple."

He grunts. "Right. So, this is where I get off."

I laugh, "Off? This train has no breaks."

He didn't laugh. "Attacking to Karabor is suicide." He looks off to the side. "Even with your pet Naaru."

"How about a pet Naaru providing invisibility spells for a Draenai army?" I ask, telepathically sending K'ure a request for help.

The violin god acquiesced. "I can provide renewable spells of invisibility for the effort."

Mennu looks between the pair of us, incredulous. "And where do you intend to get this army? You burned bridges with Tel'redor. There is no way Velen would trust you."

I shrug and gesture to the arcane construct. "He'll trust K'ure. Naaru, remember?"

K'ure gave a disgruntled trill. "Velen will accept our call to arms because it cleanses Karabor, Thurm. Do not overestimate our position too much." It then turns to Mennu. "Fear not the assault, warp-engineer. The Horde is occupied to the north with Gul'dan's grand Kosh'harg in Tannan. The temple is severely undermanned. Even with your recent population losses, Tel'Redor could successfully capture the city without my aid... if they were cautious."

The engineer grunts, outwardly disbelieving, but even I can see the hope in his eyes. "And holding it?"

I shrug and look at K'ure. "If all else fails, the city can be moved. Our plan should generate enough power to change planets, assuming it isn't simply dumped back into the ley lines. Again."

"We forged a stronger essence." The false god countered. "Though consuming the void removed it's protection; Unchecked, the Skettis would summon an old god from within the growing darkness. Releasing the arcane attracted the fel, but it also slowed the spread of the fel and void, while giving us a pretense to repair relationships with the Draenai."

"And what of relations with the Mag'har?" a gruff voice asks, coming up from the side. We turn to see Gortag and he nods to the Naaru "Great spirit." Then he looks back and forth between me and K'ure. "My mother and daughter have told me of the changing future. You are the hinge on which it swings. Are my people to be forgotten and left for the Horde to recruit? Mere pawns in Azeroth's eternal war?"

"Your people do pretty well with Azeroths eternal war" I shrug. "As to what I can do for you..." _must I?_ "Isn't draining Terrokar and Shadowmoon enough? K'ure and I suck the poison fel blood from the ley lines should calm the elements and let things stabilize." I turn instead to Mennu. "Think you could make something to hold a _Godly_ amount of arcane essence? With what we intend to do I can enchant my ship and every-bodies armor till we make reality shudder with our steps and there'll still be plenty left over. That's why K'ure dumped the power back into the world last time."

"Holding too much in a confined space risks a re-origination event." K'ure warns, but Mennu nods.

"We will need to gather some Arkonite, but it's possible. A visit the Jorune mine or perhaps one of the less defiled settlements with an intact workshop." He looked at K'ure. "The raw crystal will grow spontaneously to handle the essence and power, so long as there is material to incorporate into it's body." He paused. "We had to abandon Jorune when fel corruption began to take hold. Given what you've told me, that was probably when Gul'Dan fought the Furies. We thought it was the Bladewind clan messing with forces they shouldn't. The emerald fires eating their camp suggested as much." His voice was heavy and pained at that last admission. There was history there, but this was the wrong time to pry.

"Still want to leave?" I ask him.

Mennu glares at me. "Do I have a choice?"

"Yes." I reply, dumbfounded. "Not a lot of good choices,.." I add after a pause "but I won't stop you from heading for other more dangerous living spaces. With or without me, Draenor is in for hard times. I suppose I _could_ stop the Horde, but then Azeroth will get eaten by the old gods and the whole universe looses. If I let the Horde get to Azeroth and stop interfering, Ner'Zhul brings the Septer of Sargeras, Eye of Dalaran and Book of Medhiv here, turning Draenor into an asteroid field held together by Void, Blood and Souls. The transition is NOT pleasant. If I stop them from doing that, they turn their frustration at being forced to retreat on you while the world continues to die. In that last case, if I continue on to purge shadowmoon, then at least you'll have a biosphere to survive in while the Horde grinds itself between you and the alliance."

I shrug. "Frankly, unless you grovel to Velen for a place on the Zenedar, tempest keep, you're fucked."

"And I've already burnt that bridge." he mutters. "Clever..." He looks me in the eyes, "Well, imperator, what now?"

I don't get a chance to respond as Gortag, tired of being ignored, crashes into my jaw. His wind assisted jump gives his creaky bones enough force to stagger ogre me, but that's not the dangerous or even insulting part. It's the collection of dire ravens that have surrounded us while Mennu and I were talking. Recovering and shaking the stars out of my head, I put up a shield and furiously consider whether or not to kill the birds and orc with an arcane nova.

"_**WHAT?!**_" I roar, at the grizzled caveman.

"My..." he growls slowly "people... Gorka has told me what the great spirit saw in her future." He growled. "You abuse my teachings while my people die. Your disciples lead the Mag'har to their deaths. The land is still ravaged. Everything changes, and nothing is different. Why should I follow when all I have to look forward to is my grandson being a great hero?"

I growl deep in my throat and massage my jaw. "What is it with everyone wanting to leave at once?" I close my eyes, and when I open them, my eyes burn with arcane power and the rage of wounded pride. "Your... people. Your people are as bad as Ogres, worse really, for your better general intelligence. Rape, genocide, the _Path of Glory_" I spit those words, "and those before being deceived by Gul'Dan. Once _your people_ threw in with the warlocks, that road of bones expanded from a three meter wide path, to a mile. And they'll do just the same in Azeroth. And the Mag'har? They're better, but only by pre-horde levels. The Kor'kron and Iron Horde prove that."

"But suppose I do help. What would you have me do? Integrate you into an alliance who will spend the next six years fighting the Horde for survival? Find you a place in a world already full of sapient races you'll happily slaughter? What?"

Surprisingly, Gortag has an answer. "Gul'dan will raise land from the sea floor, and Kalimdor will not feel the sting of the Horde for 20 years. Do you not fancy yourself an ambassador and world-shaper?"

Appealing to my [ambition]. Prick. "What's to stop me from dumping you and negotiating with the Tauren?"

Gortag is about to speak when Gorka shoulders her way through the ravens and places a hand on her fathers shoulder. She glares at him until he shuts his mouth and then turns to me. "Because the Taruen will not join your Harem, Thurm. But I... _I will_ _help you __**build **__one._"

"Daughter, No!"

Wait...wat? But I was going for the Draenai chick.?! Waaaaaiiiit a _minute!_ I whip my head around to stare at K'ure. The false god hums innocently, sounding like a viola. Give me the world smallest violin, will you? "And why would you do that?" I ask, still glaring at the Naaru. "What made you think I'd even want you?" [Lustful] and [Harem King] aside...

"Because you'll happily fuck any woman without a disease" the orc girl replies, absolutely deadpan. "The Great Spirit forsaw this." My glare at the naaru intensifies, but she continues. "Follow you, and my greatest trial will be seducing the Draenai, Samaara. All else will be a grand adventure. Leave you at any point, and though **you** will do nothing and quickly forget me, neither world will not be so kind."

"You make it sound so clinical." I grouse, while Mennu joins me in glaring.

She shrugs. "There will be time for romance later." She glares at her father. "And negotiations as well. For now, I must stop my father from driving us towards a 'bad end', and you must soothe the artificer's cowardice. Shadowmoon is treacherous and all will need their wits about them."

I shake my head slowly as the purple orc woman grabs her father by the tusk and drags him off, breaking through the dire ravens and causing the birds to follow behind.

What.  
The.  
Fuck.

"I hope your plan doesn't involve us going into battle." Mennu interrupts my thoughts, a hand on my shoulder. "Because we'll hurt each other more than the orcs."

I shake my head. "Runemasters run rituals at range. Melee means you've made many mistakes."

The Draenai guffawed. "I'll be in my workroom. Building shields. Find me some Arkonite and maybe we won't all die."

An ironic turn of phrase, really, given I actually knew where to find some untainted Arkonite. At Achindoun. Where everyone had just died.

Sighing, I start scrying.

It doesn't take long to find the arkonite shards. As one of the Draenai's primary building materials post argus, there are pieces of it literally everywhere across the 'bone wastes'. They burn like stars to my arcane sight and I remove several from the skeletal dunes. Next, I scan the area for survivors.

There are roughly nine thousand bodies in the area that aren't loose bone, animate skeletons or ghosts. Five thousand of them, give or take, have no armor worth mentioning, though there are occasional powerful magical signatures among them. Of those without armor, 173 are still alive. Of those with armor, One and a half thousand wear some sort of leather, two thousand are in plate and another five hundred are in cloth. Again, rough estimates. of those, 82 were still alive. 64 plate and 16 cloth. The leather wearers were mostly Horde dead, buried during the explosion.

It takes me nearly ten minutes to do it without being there in person, but I manage to connect one of the portals I'd used previously near Tel'redor to a Justicar's chest plate where the survivors are trying to gather the dead. The action stirs up the Achunai like kicking over an ant hill, but when no enemies pour out to murder everybody, one brave soul takes a look. It leads him to a Zangar cap that's half hidden by Tel'redor's shield, and upon crossing over, he's met by a small host of joyful vindicar.

It's the least I can do. Let the Draenai mourn their dead. Maybe with Velen, they can raise some of them.

Done with the Draenai, I move on to finding the Horde. It takes me a bit, but I find a column of people walking behind a massive blank spot. Trying to pierce it ends my spell in a flash of ebony. Two more tries, one on my own, another with Samaara feeding me Light, fail the same way. I could call K'ure over and probably pierce the veil, but it's not important that I stop them.

Not yet.

Thanking my draenai chick with a kiss on the hand, I let her go back to dealing with the Ravens who she and the orcs have convinced to turn our ship into a roost, and pick up my arkonite shards. With them, I head down to Mennu's quarters, shouldering my way through dozens and dozens of dire Ravens. The birds squawk indignantly and snap at my personal shield, biting off chunks of it as I pass through.

Arriving at the warp-engineer's room, I dump the handfuls on his workbench and grunt at him. _Will these do?_

The slightly mutated draenai begins examining them carefully, his eyes glowing brighter than normal. Crystal after crystal is discarded, but after nearly ten minutes he places one to the side. Thirteen shards either tainted, or holding some other property that makes them useless for the current goal, one accepted and four more to go. Two more end up tossed negligently into the discard pile before the crafter squints hard at the next to last and gestures at it. A bolt of lightning leaps out of it, striking his hand, and the fallen draenai yelps.

Turning to me, he offers me the gem. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"The gem has a thin shadow upon it, but is otherwise pure" he rumbles. "I tried to cleanse it with light and it bit me. Take it to your pet Naaru and see if it can't suck the void out." He tosses the rock at me when I don't immediately take it from him and turns to the last one. "Hmm..."

I catch the shadowed arkonite in a force bubble and ask. "Hmm, what? Something interesting?"

"Eh?" he tears his gaze away from the final stone. "Oh, this one has an essence clinging to the surface I've never seen before. It's pure arcane, but...harmonic?" He shakes his head and stuffs the rock into a small pocket. "I'll experiment with it later." Then he grabs the pure shard he'd set aside before and heads for the door.

I follow him out, amused as the ravens part before him like the red sea. Once we get back on deck, I follow him to the rail and he points to one of the mountains. "Arkonite was Exarch Hatuum's attempt to reproduce Argunite, a mineral from our homeworld, famed for the ease with which it became essence. As essence acts to magic like a Magnet to electricity, we used it extensively as a means of powering our technology. Everything from simple clocks to piped water mills to our dimension hopping star ships was fueled this way. Argunite grew from the ley lines, and so when trying to reproduce it, we sought out and manipulate the ley lines here. That was what led us to build shattrath atop your ruins." He looks at me, expecting a reaction, but shrugging when I return with only academic interest.

"The experiments failed repeatedly for two decades, until Hatuum created this." He held up the shard. "It's only a third as effective and requires five times the power, but Arkonite can convert just about any rock in direct contact with it into more Arkonite. Though, gems and metal ores largely rebuff it. Without material to convert, it behaves like any other gem infused with essence; drawing in raw mana and continually casting the last spell channeled through it." His gaze focuses in on me like a laser. "As Shadowmoon is now thoroughly tainted with fel power, we obviously cannot use the local stone, the result of that would be a nightmare; so what I need from you, is that mountain, floating alongside us. If K'ure truly can do with shadowmoon what it did here, this is how you store that level of power without releasing it to the ley lines or triggering a re-origination event."

Then he chuckled darkly. "Though, if we could manage it with the Horde inside 20 miles of, it would be worth dying in the resultant holocaust."

I nod sagely. It was a pity I hadn't asked Mennu about doing something like this prior to cleansing the pools. The problem of course, would be floating the mountain. It's not that I couldn't, the Grond Stone being what it was, but it would take all of the power we needed to run the shields. Hell, teleporting the Genedar was a comparable feat, but without the netherlight forging, it would have taken me fifteen minutes to pull off, and that was a one off action. This would have to be channeled.

Unless... I looked between the stone in Mennu's hand, the stone on the deck and the stone valley K'ure had blessed, far below.

"Mennu... how long does it usually take to grow arkonite?"

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Casting spells is limited by three things. The intelligence of the caster, the mana you can gather and the time you take casting. To launch a ball of fire, a bolt of lightning or a spear of ice, an experienced caster can weave the spell in about the same time it takes to pitch a baseball. The spell moves about as far and as fast too, but that's entirely beside the point.

Most ritual spells have a windup of between five and forty minutes depending on the complexity of what you're doing and how long you want the effect to last. Filling a battlefield with a wave of fire? Five minutes. Less if you have some reagents. Teleporting the Genedar without deus ex Naaru? 15 minutes. Putting a dome shield around a city? 20, plus another minute for every condition on what can and cannot pass through. Setting the metropolis of Dalaran in the sky and holding it there? An hour for the city's five top arch-magi and the regular contribution of every spell chucker to visit the city.

Converting enough rock into Arkonite to set the former Spire of Dawn in the sky and have it match our speed? That took Mennu and I from mid morning until dusk.

Four hundred purple crystals, each the size of my head, studded the flying pyramid. The air roared as it moved, tearing at the massive displacement. No doubt, the Arakoa and Saberon would be telling tales of UFO's around the campfire for years to come. Or, at least until Draenor became Outland and the Arak subcontinent suffered from acute reality failure...

Three miles wide at the base, just shy of a mile tall and moving at two hundred miles an hour, contrails stream behind us as the party heads for shadowmoon.

We reach the shared border an hour before dawn, and K'ure leaves the ship. The Naaru takes control of the floating mountain and moves towards the firewall. Glowing like a violet star, K'ure's presence causes a change in the conflicting energies. The poisonous green fingers of fog-like mana lift off the ground and begin reaching for the strongest source of their diametric opposite. Before, that was a land permeated by order, now it's the false god. Like light and void before them, chaos seeks to equalize it's partner and flows towards it inexorably.

But in K'ure... doing so is a trap. The black and gold eyes of the false god flare sharply, lighting up the night with darkness beyond blackness and light brighter than the noonday sun. The fingers of emerald fire shudders and I swear I can hear a scream of pain and terror as the neon miasma compresses to a point and then splits, flowing into either eye as twin streams of ink and gold. And at the heart of it, is the purple white star of the rest of the Naaru's body. The brilliant gold and unfathomable black are absorbed wholesale into the plum body and channeled backwards into the first of the Arkonite crystals.

As the stream of pure arcane power flows into the Arkonite, thick and fast, the mineral reaction begins to take place. Veins of amethyst lance out, boring through the stone it's embedded into, causing truckloads of gravel to fall off and then float back up as though the crystal had it's own gravity. The rocks melt into the crystal as the geodes continue to extend, until an arc of arcane power lances off one and into the next closest gem. And then, the process repeats itself, only faster.

And it's not only the mountain's conversation which is accelerating. With the thickening presence of arcane in the area, more fel detaches itself from the firewall and funnels itself into the crucible where Light and Void do what comes naturally to them. Purify and Consume.

"And so between them both you see, they licked the platter clean." I sing softly, watching the tableau.

Over the next several hours, K'ure continues to float deeper and deeper into Shadowmoon, heading towards the distant peak, the Hand of Gul'dan.

It's not all gravy though. There _are_ still orc clans here and I spend the time constantly scrying and engaging in back and forth tele-sniping with the skeleton crews left behind to man the home front.

Several times the warlocks attempt to summon demons against us. Void walkers ooze their way across my scrying spell to be purged by Samaara's holy arrows, leaving valuable nethercite plates behind. Doomguard try to land on the deck, only to be swarmed by dire-ravens and summarily decapitated by Gorka and Gortag. Mennu had disappeared to parts unknown, but when a rain of Infernals ricochet off the Arkonite mountain rather than smashing into it and tainting the ore, I suspect I know the answer to that mystery.

For my part? In addition to fending off spells from the warlocks and spurts of felblood from the odd kamakazi warrior, the warlocks try to entrap me across my scrying pool with Succubi. You would think from the sheer uncanny valley ugly of the warcraft models that they'd be as easy to ignore and slaughter as in the game, but they actually live up to their reputation. They start off ugly, but as soon as the crafty bitches get a whiff of their target, they physically transform into your wet dreams. And that's before they start attacking your mind directly.

For me, it's athletic anime fox-girls. Ahri eat your heart out; it nearly tears out mine whenever those gorgeous vixens get torn apart by the latest nasty AOE I've dropped too late to take back upon their summoners. I think about half of them survive the event, though I'm never entirely sure under the pulverized ash, ice and fire. Whoever Gul'dan disdains enough to leave behind on this dying world is either strong enough to have left for better battlefields, or isn't even a challenge for your average solo adventurer.

Finally, we reach the Hand of Gul'Dan shortly after noon. K'ure ascends the volcano, solidifying the neon magma and raising the arkonite mountain, now covered in a lattice of interlocking plum jewels and vaguely egg shaped, over top, interposing the two elemental monuments. It's almost comical how small the Naaru is between the two behemoths of stone, but with the Void sucking in light on one side of the landscape, Light shining like a new dawn beneath the choking clouds of ash on the other and two green and purple mountains above and below, no one can doubt the creatures power.

A speak of light lances down into the Volcano and the entire peninsula of Shadowmoon shudders as K'ure connects to the ley lines. The entire landscape seems to crawl Fel mana is sucked out of the air and into cracks in the ground. Those cracks then draw in the crazy magic from the land around them and begin to pulse like the veins of an athlete going into cardiac arrhythmia.

Then the volcano explodes. Literally, the entire stone mountain just shatters into a billion pieces to reveal a vaguely humanoid outline with four great fiery wings and feet like a mangroves roots. Said roots dive into the soil of Shadowmoon and pulse to the same beat as the cracks, as reality tries to collapse in upon itself where the mountain used to be.

Despite this, K'ure floats serene.

The veridian seraph raises it's head and screams defiance at the Naaru, but the false god simply hovers there.

Then, the beam of light connecting the two beings thrums with a deep bass note and a noise like a cello concerto begins to play. The noise that is not noise vibrates across the entire basin, for you can hardly call something this large a valley, and the process begins again. Streams of emerald fire are drawn inexorably up in front of the being, to be dissected by the unified powers of Light and Void. The thick cable of arcane power flowing up into the Arkonite mountain becomes a solid beam and the Hand of Gul'Dan begins to wither. It struggles and thrashes about. Below it, time, distance and perspective go completely insane, twisting into lovecraftian geometries that skip back and forth through time with wild abandon, but as it tries to use these to attack, the utterly oppressive power of that much order magic negates all attempts to strike back.

Above K'ure, the mountain becomes entirely encased in purple crystal, and then begins to change shape. First, with a series of thunderous cracks and an aurora like a plasma globe the pyramid takes on the shape of an egg. Then it flattens out slightly and grows taller, taking on a shape vaguely akin to a kite shield. To me, K'ure whispers "Behold Azerat'kure; the patient redeemer. For now, it is little more than a gigantic rock with a nook in which to fasten your ship, but eventually, you shall craft it into a ship of your own. It's new shape is sufficient to fit the mass of it through the Dark Portal. Speaking of which..."

The emerald seraphim, whose tendrils now stretch only a quarter of the distance to the horizon rather than beyond it, seizes up. Then, with a cry of hope, loss, confusion and insanity drains itself entirely into a beam of purist demonic power soaring due north.

Anticipating my curiosity, K'ure creates a scrying window right in front of the ship, showing us the beams progress across the Devouring Sea. We sail over the shipyards of Zeth'kur, desolate plains of the former Tannan jungle and towards a gigantic stone henge, tall enough for the demon lords Archimonde or Kil'Jaden to walk through without reducing their titanic bulk an inch. Three quarters of a mile tall, a third of a mile wide, and that was just the mouth. Built entirely of the fel-poisoned slate quarried from the surrounding land and set upon a foot-hill as it's platform, this can be nothing other than the Dark Portal.

Gul'Dan and his Shadow Council stand in a circle by the portals mouth, obviously interrupted mid-argument. On the thousand steps below them, enchanted bone cages holding Draenai prisoners, meant to be sacrificed alongside numerous artifacts to open the path to Azeroth make their slow progress upwards. All of that is irrelevant however as the unfathomable torrent of power crashes into the group.

I dare to hope, for just a moment, that K'ure has killed my personal nightmares, Gul'Dan, Teron'gor, Cho'Gal and the dozen of so lesser members of the Shadow Council, but no luck. The terrible trio absorb the remaining fel power of the Shadowmoon, and as if moved by a compulsion, drunkenly, mechanically, release it once more into the pillars and sill of the great Henge. Emerald light explodes across the maw of the arch, swirling into a vortex of broken reality. It bucks, heaves, and then clears to reveal a swamp and a very startled man wearing a drab cloak, trimmed with raven feathers.

The Dark Portal was open.

The Invasion of Azeroth was about to begin.


	8. Chapter 8

Wind whispers across the desolate plains of Hellfire Peninsula, seemingly the only noise in existence for a short eternity as the Horde come to grips with what just happened. Gul'Dan had brought them together. He had spoken of a grand working that would bring them a promised land full of food, water and favorable elements. After two decades of constant war and one atrocity after another, the green skinned monsters had begun to go mad, losing hope and giving into the base savagery that clawed at the edges of their minds. Food had been on ration for months and Blackhand's means of maintaining discipline were nearly as brutal as their retribution against the Draenai.

But then... a miracle. The elements had bypassed the harsh preparations Gul'Dan had demanded of them and shown the warlocks their favor. A great spirit, for what else could command such power, had come to them in their time of need and fulfilled their leaders wildest promises in one blessed moment.

That moment of tense wonder broke as the cloaked foreigner on the other side of the portal vanished in an explosion of green smoke and ravens.

But as the Horde suddenly turn from docile to a charging mob of roaring barbarians, my focus is on something else entirely.

Gul'Dan didn't sacrifice the little Draenai girl.  
Durotan didn't publicly oppose him.  
The Draenai prisoners still live.  
The Frostwolf clan has not been banished in disgrace.

Fuck me, this is going to cause some massive butterflies. Well, waste not, want not. It seems I have some work to do!

As the clans of the Horde rush the gates of the new world, they conveniently forget all about the caged Draenai they had been painstakingly collected as sacrifices for the portals creation. Carefully, I craft my own scrying lens in case K'ure drops the one it's using, and begin marking the captives. The Purple runescript creeps its way across the left breast of men, women and children one after another, and the blue goats helpfully cover the luminous spellwork with their hands while I work. The work is a delicate balance between skill, patience and power, as I'm required to overpower the fel curses on the bars not only without breaking said spells, but also without attracting attention.

Once I have all of the Draenai's presences firmly transmitting in my mind, I move on to rescuing them. A group teleport is out of the question. The spell would fill the area with arcane power, easily revealing my efforts and very possibly inviting retribution from the Elite Warlocks of the Shadow Council. Simply teleporting them out one after another would be more stealthy, but with the time I'll need to grab them all one by one, it's doubtless that someone will notice the slowly emptying cages. To that end, I use the [Mirror Image] spell, leaving illusionary copies of the Eradar Exiles behind even as I teleport them out.

As I work, a headache slowly growing with every spell in the chain, Samaara comes to my rescue. As each new prisoner collapses to my deck in relief and bewilderment, the Rangari Sunbow draws them off to the side and explains the situation to them. On no less than a dozen occasions one of the women rushes me, crying hysterically about her child, brother, father or husband who I need to drop everything and save **_NOW_**, threatening my fraying concentration and dooming us all. Twice there have been men like that, but so far I've been lucky, and the ones who approached and interrupted me instead took on some aspect of my spellcasting, easing the burden by taking it upon themselves and giving me more time to save their friends. This is all the more impressive given the emaciated condition of many of those giving their minds and mana to my cause.

Like all good things though, it does not last.

While I've been distracted extracting the Draenai, Gul'Dan had come back through the portal with a small army of Peons. Moving the cage disturbs my spell and the mirror image vanishes before the warlocks startled face. I don't even notice. The master warlock moves to the next cage and grabs it's occupant by the neck. Unleashing a spell of pain, he snarls grimly as the 'frightened' illusion pops under the corrosive force of the emerald flame.

THAT is when _I_ notice something is wrong. The feedback of the mirror image being popped by fel magic gives me a stabbing migraine in the middle of a teleport and the Draenai I'm transporting explodes in a shower of gore and twisted space.

Thankfully for me, the Draenai who are helping me feel the events as well, as part of the spell and don't attack me while I'm down.  
Unfortunately for me, Gul'Dan has figured out exactly what is going on, and has seized another of the mirror images, furiously tracing my magic back to the source.

"You base incompetents!" The warlock roars. A disk of smokey emerald flame explodes out of him, bowling over hundreds of orcs who are still ascending the 'Stair of Destiny' to reach the new world. The wave continues through the ranks of caged space-goats and I frantically dismiss as many of the mirror images as I can before the spell breaks them. I'm not entirely successful, but the greatly reduced load on my mind allows me to weather the feedback from the spells that do end painfully. "Secure the rest of the sacrifices! GO!"

When the race between us ends, there are still 37 Draenai in cages and one mirror image in Gul'Dan's grip. The spell is now under the warlocks control and resisting my efforts to cut the connection. Emerald improbability washes across the fold in space time, following my spell from telepresence to origin. And just like that, the spell breaks, leaving a green lantern projection of the stooped orc on my deck.

The Draenai surrounding me shrink back in fear, some cowering, others running off into the swarm of Ravens on deck, and even a few who are brave (or stupid) enough to jump over the rail, willing to risk falling to their deaths rather than suffer the orcs attentions once more.

"So... You're the one who would kidnap what I have rightfully stolen." the warlock croaked. "I think you shall find this most unwise..."

I push myself up from my knees and tower over the projection. "You weren't using them." I return, forcing calm. "I figured, it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. But you wouldn't know about that, what with Kil'jaden being your master. Mercy isn't in his vocabulary."

The images eyes widened, and then his scowl split into a wide grin. "Another agent of the Legion." He replied, voice suddenly oil smooth. "I have you to thank for the power to open the portal."

I force myself not to blink at that leap in logic. It's...not entirely untrue, I suppose. "Yes." I reply simply. "Me and the evil spirit of Shadowmoon."

Confusion and suspicion enter the warlocks expression. "The dark star? Cho'Gall will pay for plundering the armory."

I chuckle and shake my head. "No, chief warlock." I tell him. "I used your own working to provide the power. The so called 'Hand of Gul'Dan'. It controlled the land once, so I used it to drain the land of power and send it to you."

Let him think this was a plan by Cho'Gal. I'm happy to let that stand. The warlock nods to that thoughtfully, the hand not on his cane rubbing his chin. "Beg forgiveness, hmm... I think I understand. I shall speak with Cho'Gall about your insubordination. In the mean time... a _gift._"

The hand on the warlocks chin flashes out and goes through several strange gestures in a blur before a beam of neon _**power**_ lances out from the spell towards my heart.

My life flashes before my eyes as the beam of impending doom or corruption speeds toward me... but as it's about to connect, a blue grey form interposes itself between me and Gul'Dan, absorbing the lance. I watch in fascination as the emaciated Draenai catches my doom in his open mouth. Rather than causing the man to explode or die horribly, he swallows the pillar of raw fel and I get to watch in _fascination_ as his starved and beaten blue black body begins to fill out with muscle. Though the beam connects to his head with streamers splitting off to pour into his eyes nose and ears, the change begins in his bloated stomach, which quickly flattens. The starvation rot that's forcing him to eat his own organs reverses and forms a crimson skinned six-pack abs before rippling out wards. Muscle groups quickly bulge into being across his ribs and hips before spreading to his legs and arms. As the goat-man rapidly reforms from an Auschwitz escapee into a competitor for the Mr Universe Pageant, the discoloration of his skin from shale blue to fire engine red keeps pace, swiftly reaching from the top of his head down to his hooves.

The transformation completed, the newly christened Eradar collapses to the deck and I'm left looking into the shocked visage of Gul'Dan.

I try not to chuckle weakly as I preempt his reaction. "I guess that's one reason to keep your slaves in cages." I tell him. "I appreciate the gift, warchief, but as you see, I have some work before me, yet."

At that moment, K'ure comes to my rescue, flashing purple and black and shattering the spell allowing my own personal terror to speak to me.

I turn to the Naaru, relief flooding my body, making my body limp and loose so I have to fight not to collapse. "Thanks. Truly. Think you can handle this guy" I jerk a thumb at the Eradar, who is even now rising from his prone position "while I grab the rest of the prisoners? Our cover is blown, and it's do or die now."

The Naaru hums, projecting amusement. "I shall finish your work. You shall deal with what it has wrought." K'ure counters, forming a barrier dome that pushes out the rest of the recently freed Draenai and leaving me trapped with the one who'd given his soul to save mine. "This shall be... instructive."

Black and gold stars twinkle in the translucent violet dome and I know instinctively that I won't be able to escape this. [Guided by Arcane] tells me as much. Portals, teleportation, physical movement and my own personal magical might will all be insufficient. And **_this time_**, I don't have the Grond Stone with which to cheat. Hell, I don't even have the Imperator's staff of office, as it was knocked outside the circle by the leaping draenai.

All I have, [Guided by Arcane] tells me, is my enchanted hide armor, my purchased skills... and the shadow wrought arconite crystal Mennu asked me to cleanse.

I look into the blazing emerald stare of the newly minted Man'ari and search for a sign of sanity. "So..." I cast out, calmly as I can force myself to be. "I don't suppose you're one of the rare special ones capable of remaining sane after tainting?" I ask him. "I would love to have my very own Illidan Stormrage! Still, as much as I'd hate to kill one who saved my life, I refused to play frog and scorpion."

"You..." the man gave a hacking cough and neon fire spurted out from his mouth "talk... too much."

Well, that's promising. One side of my mouth pulls up in a grin. "Is that a yes?"

The Eradar massages his throat and bends himself back and forth, pops and cracks following his movements. "What makes you think I did it to save you, Ogre?" the red goat-man spat a blob of forest green... blood? Flem? On my poor deck where it started a fire and continued. "Maybe, I was just tired of suffering the weakness of my people these last 15 millennia and sought to improve myself at your expense?"

I quickly weave an arcane blast and cast it on the blob, snuffing out the chaos and revealing it to be a piece of meat. Possibly even a part of the former Draenai's lung. "Well, in that case, I'd kick you off my ship like an unemployable stowaway." I reply nonchalant. "Even if it was an accident, you still saved me from a horrible fate. That deserves a chance at life, rather than a certainty of death; but not the open arms of an ally."

The fel draenai chuckles darkly and moves from his loose state to a ready fighting stance. "I have a counter offer." His hooves flash neon green and he rushes towards me with a roar and a flaming trail behind him.

_Battle spells take about as long to cast as for a pitcher to throw a baseball._The lesson reverberates through my mind as a purple white shield springs up around my fist. I barely have the time to move my arm to intercept him before our two spells detonate against each other. It doesn't stop the mans momentum, but deflects him away from me to crash into the greater shield K'ure trapped us in. As he roars at the pain of a broken nose, I reach for my side, where four rough grooves dig themselves into my flesh. They burn, as though tainted by acid and I fight the urge to scream.

Apparently, the Eradar has claws. And he undoubtedly coated them with fel fire during his charge. Three gestures bandage the wound in a layer of arcane force, stopping the bleeding and neutralizing the fel curse.

This isn't the smartest of moves, as it gives my opponent time to recover as well. Time I should really have spent blasting him to kingdom come. My hands claw themselves into the appropriate shapes and I push outward, releasing a burst of magic as bone chilling mist. My Frost Nova turns the entire arena into a impromptu snow globe, freezing him into place as I build the focus to blink away. The ice shatters and he covers himself in an aura of flame. As he steps out of the ice, he throws a hay-maker. He's much too far away for the blow to connect, but as his fist moves through the air, a crescent of fel power leaps out at me.

I blink out of the way of the attack and begin peppering him bolts of fire, spears of ice and blasts if arcane force as fast as I can gather the modicum of power needed into my fists. He dodges several of them, only receiving glancing blows and raises a fist to the heavens. A streamer of holy light briefly glimmers from above, but it's weak and would never have penetrated the barrier, even if it had only been a single element thick. Nonetheless, a egg shaped shield of neon power encapsulates him, absorbing my hits without scoring further wounds. His raised fist moves as if he's trying to pull down on a weight machine before ending, fingers splayed out, palm down, and his power leaps across the distance to attempt to flatten me with a hammer of chaos.

I leap and roll out of the way as it caves in a section of my poor ships deck. The son of a bitch is a former paladin!

What does that make him exactly? He can't be a death-knight, right? Those were Void corpses first and Blood/Undeath/Frost corpses later. Fallen paladin? Fel paladin? Fallen Knight? I'm distracted from my musings, by the urgent need to shield as a missile of raw chaos splashes across my vision.

I blink again, avoiding the incoming charge by luck as much as paranoia. This time, he rebounds off K'ure's shield, having expected me not to be there and charges again. Not wanting him to gain the upper hand, I dual cast. One arm shoots up into the air above me and a rippling wave of force explodes out from my body in a globe, while the other I point towards my opponent. As he meets my arcane explosion face first and the two spells cancel each other out, my left hand goes through six gestures before making as though I'm gripping something and crushing it.

The fel Draenai screams as my spell-breakers charge twists his own mana against him. Fel power is naturally difficult to control, requiring a strong will and agile mind to avoid self detonation, never mind to use it effectively in combat. While the results of any arcane spell that got through his mana toughened hide would normally just result in a wound as the two powers canceled each other out violently, the twisting nature of the spell-breakers charge instead worked _with_ the fel's chaotic nature, turning a normally debilitating spell into a cascade collapse he had to fight to control.

I couldn't give him the time to do that.

Space bend around the fel knight and disks of purple light flashed as hemispheres of space tried to rotate separately of reality. Great rents appeared across his body, one after another leaking blazing green blood, until finally he simply exploded like a frog in a microwave.

The sheer power of the explosion filled K'ure's arena and my hastily erected shields shattered one after another.

Then everything went black.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

I floated alone in an infinite night. Sounds were absorbed, sensation was muted, and though I could see stars, I knew, instinctively, they were not lights. They were creatures. Unfathomable, curious, resentful, hungry...patient. I was not supposed to be here, and for that, they were going to devour me. But eternity is long, and they could afford to take their time doing so. I wasn't going anywhere.

_The warp is calm...  
_  
It's strange where you mind goes in sensory deprivation. This place is, essentially, a funhouse mirror of warhammer, after all. The warp is the source of souls. The void only has them because of foolish mortal meddling. Daemons are a reflection of the pain and misery of sentience. The Void walkers are souls twisted by the maddening emptiness of the void. How do you perceive pure nothingness? It's a niggling impossibility that the mind seeks to fill with answers, but where none exist, terror steps up to fill the gap with madness. Patterns formed from the unknowable. Except... that the void _IS_ pattern. Where the warp is chaos, the Void is inevitability.

Shaking my head, I force those thoughts away. The are unimportant. What is, is how I got here, why, and what I was doing before that.

I examine myself, and find that I'm back in my human body...sort of. I'm a hell of a lot better muscled than I was before. A flickering orange light pops out of nowhere and I look up to see my Ogre body, Thurm, but he looks different too. His jaw no longer distends and his face is more aquiline.

_You're not imagining it, _the image of Thurm tell me. The voice is the one I've become used to hearing when I speak. _Sit.  
_  
I look at where he's gesturing and a block of wood appears on the other side of the fire. _How did we get here?_ I ask, taking the offered seat.

The Ogre looks at me, mildly surprised. _Straight to business. Not even shock, wondering how this is possible? You are different than your memories suggest of your people.  
_  
I shrug. _I'm probably different than I was when I first took your body too. [Murderhobo] probably wasn't one of my better ideas.  
_  
Thurm guffawed. _No one likes a pussy. It was a plus, and you know it. _He poked the imaginary fire with the butt of the Imperator's staff of office._ Had you not, we would both have died before our first encounter with Cho'Gal. _His face screwed up in a scowl_ just one more __**statistic**__ in the fall of my home.  
_  
The man had a point. In the middle of a warzone, the luxury of being traumatized by your first kill would almost certainly get you killed in turn. Never mind hesitating to kill an enemy when it be necessary.

_So. Why here? Why now?  
_  
The ogre shrugged. He had been getting smaller as we talked. Or maybe I was getting bigger. In either case, our mental images were the same size now.

_The veiled arconite crystal. When you failed to protect us from Naja'fien's final blow, it absorbed the fel energy, sucking it in like a ravenous bloodmaw. Lacking any material with which to grow, the crystal turned the power into a rift field, weakening reality and bringing us partially into the void. Now... It seeks to consume both our souls as it did the power of that fool Draenai.  
_  
Thurm spat on the ground. _He will NOT be resurrected in the Nether. Justice served, in my opinion.  
_  
I hum and nod, not entirely sure how we're talking when for the brief eternity before Thurm had shown himself all noises I made had been silent even to my own ears. I don't quite agree with him, this Naja'fien saved my life. Whether he did it to repay me for saving his, or truly only meant to steal Gul'Dan's "favor" from me, that doesn't deserve having your soul consumed by the void.

_I suppose I'll have to figure a way out of here then _I muse.

Thurm laughed darkly. _HOW?_ he spat, gesturing around us. _If you haven't figured it out, we're out of our depth.  
_  
It was my turn to smirk at him. _Arcane power formed in the void, my friend. Here or in reality, a mage is never bereft of aid. And according to you? We stand on the edge, a space... in-between.  
_  
Casting around for the part of my mind where [Friend to Elements] has ceaselessly aided me, I begin to form mnemonics with my hands as words of power tear themselves from my abused silent vocal cords. I'm more than 80% of the way through a greater portal spell when another figure joins us in the darkness.

That is quite unnecessary, K'ure admonished me. Teleporting blind to your own location would cause feedback that may crash the ship.

I squinted at the Naaru. _You're sure it's not you trying to avoid a tele-frag?_

K'ure declined to answer, instead lighting up the void with it's mismatched eyes. The starry night split like an egg and pulled itself into the void eye like a kid sucking in spaghetti.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The world came back to me abruptly. Golden stars twinkled in my vision and my body felt like it was melting into a hot tub after the worst hell workout of my life. Focusing my eyes, I found Samaara kneeling above me, light radiating from her chest and cocooning me in healing energy.

"How long was I out?" I ask. Startled, Samaara looses her concentration and collapses on top of me. In lieu of answering, she kisses me full on the mouth; her face wet with tears, her lips hot and insistent.

I respond and after what seems like a minute, she collapses to lay on the deck beside me. "You sacrifice too much for me, Thurm. Saving my people again and again, only to nearly die each time. Do you truly do all this for my favor?"

I shrug, still basking in the comfortable glow of the faded **Light**. "That and impulse. I'm always on the lookout for loot, and it seemed a good idea at the time."

The hornless hoof-less Draenai jabbed her elbow into my kidney sharply and I grunted. "Hey, don't harm the patient! I just got better!"

"If you truly wish my favor, you have it," she replied after a pause. "But you must stop doing this. Every time you save a life, you add to those who depend on you. For you to die doing something needlessly risky would betray that trust."

I snort. "You'd love me less if I stopped."

She was silent for a while. "Maybe, but I don't think so." She heaves a deep sigh and sits up. "You were 'gone', as you put it, for little more than an ten minutes. K'ure saved another 33 of my people before Gul'dan simply consumed the souls of the rest. The Naaru would have pulled you out earlier, it said, but it needed to convince the survivors not to kill your pet orcs. It said you would be irrational if it allowed that. Do you really care that much about Gorka?"

I rolled over and propped my head up on one hand. "Nobody touches my things." I tell her seriously. "And it's not just Gorka. That grouchy old bastard Gortag and the pocket sized Garrosh are just as important. ...Mennu too."

"And me?" She asked.

I didn't answer for several minutes, Samara's face goes through several expressions, but I speak before she does. "If the five of you, if you wanted to leave I'd try hardest to turn you around and miss you if I failed. More than that, I genuinely don't know. Like most men I'm little good with emotions. At least the complex ones."

"And this isn't just because you want to sleep with me?"

I laugh aloud and roll back onto my back. "I wanna sleep with every girl who doesn't treat me like shit or look like a Zangar swamp monster. Gorka's accusations aside. No, these things are barely related."

She nods slowly. "We have things to do. You had a plan?"

Lifting my legs and rolling back, I kick myself up to my feet and offer her a hand up. She takes it and I nod. "Yeah. Before I grabbed these schlubs," I jerk a thumb towards the Draenai refugees "I was going to show Tel'Redor what we've done to shadowmoon and offer to help them cleanse Karabor."

As we walk, I continue to explain. Along the way, we hand out food and hide blankets, summoned from my stores, and break up fights among the refugees. It quickly becomes apparent that managing the lot of them is far more complicated than I want to be responsible for long term. If all it were was my feeding them, I could probably do that. But they don't want to listen to me. If I'm on their side, I'm the savior, if I'm telling them to calm down, I'm the Ogre slaver. Or for the one I told to sit down and shut up or I'd catapult him off my ship, I'm the Legion Sympathizer. For the most part, they look first to Samaara before properly conceding to follow my orders.

Or at least... that what it looks like to me.

Finally, I get done with tending to all 439 of them, the healthiest of whom are the children, and retreat to the wheelhouse. A few minutes later Samaara and Gorka have directed all of the Dire ravens to perch on the rails so I can bring all of the former captives up on deck and properly display them. That done, I put in a call to Velen.

"Thurm," the grizzled grey goat intones as my scrying clears. "I have been expecting you." He looks off to the side as if checking something. "And you are late."

I facepalm. "God damn it, old man. Can't I surprise you once in a while?"

"You have surprised me often since we met, child, and it has been a very short relationship." I grinned and he continued. "It is time to cleanse the Temple then?"

I chuckle and nod. "And here I was thinking I was going to have to work for it." I told him. "I even came prepared with gifts!" I turn the scrying spell around so that he can see the crowd of starved forms and walk myself back into the picture. "I was going to bargain them away, dragging out concessions and promices, because I know it hurts you every time you loose one to the Legion" yeah, right, if he'd cared so much he would have cut loose and turned them all crispy with his holy god laser powers and spanked the Naaru who disagreed, "but if you're just going to give in, then please, for the love of the Light, take them off my hands."

The Prophet raises an eyebrow at me. "You do not care for these people? You saved them from the pits of sacrifice and great personal risk, did you not?"

"But they're sooo annoying!" I reply, just short of whining. "I mean, sure, my motives were far from altruistic, but a little gratitude would have been nice!"

The rumple headed alien shakes his head sadly at me. "You will figure this out soon, son, but my people are sensitive to sincerity. It is a byproduct of long generations in the presence of the Naaru. If you are not sincere, you will not receive their respect. And you cannot fake it with the bluster you are so fond of either."

"Way to be a buzz kill." I tell him, shaking my head. "Do you know the plan then?"

"You have corrupted the Naaru K'ure from Light, into Arcane. K'ure shall provide my warriors with a powerful invisibility through which they may gain the upper hand in retaking the city. What I don't think you have considered however, is how we are going to hold it. The Horde may be happily occupied with exploring the Black Morass, but as soon as they learn of this defeat, they will return to seek vengeance."

I shake my head. "You're letting the light cloud your judgement again." I counter. "Remember our work with Netherlight forging? I see two possibilities here. One, you allow K'ure to use your light, the Temples void taint and my prepared artifacts to form a shield around the city. I can almost guarantee you, it'll be strong enough to keep both Kil'Jaden AND Archimonde at bay without further defenses. The other possibility? How have you been doing on harvesting the Genedar?"

The leader of the Draenai narrows his eyes. "The work progresses, despite your disruptions. We have begun laying the foundation for several smaller ships."

I grin. "In the new worlds future, one of the great cities, Dalaran, will be attacked by an endless army made of the butchered and desecrated corpses of their neighbors citizens. It's going to be a crime worse than the Path of Glory. To stop it from happening again, the magi of Dalaran will cast a grand spell that lifts the entire metropolis into the sky and keeps it there indefinitely. And they don't even have the special void ship materials you now have... simply _laying around_." I finish, spreading my arms out suggestively. "If you were to turn them instead into making your holy temple unassailable... who am I to stop you?" I grin even wider. "You could even bring it to the new world later if you don't decide to follow Tempest Keep to Argus."

"You are quite adamant that the Tempest Keep will come." Velen countered. "You do not think you've changed the future too drastically?"

"Not yet," I reply darkly.

Velen is silent for several minutes, looking pensive. "There is someone important at the temple. Someone Gul'Dan left behind specifically." When I responded only with a grim smile, he nodded. "I understand. My people shall be on alert."

"Speaking of your people..." I began crafting a portal through the warped space of the scrying spell. "I think these belong to you."

The ancient nodded gravely and declined to destroy my casting. Or destroy me as the casting completed. I was quite thankful for that.

With a word and a gesture from their leader, the refugees on my ship began to cheer. In a bizarrely orderly fashion they surged forward and began to stream through the portal. One after another, they shuffled at an impressive speed, each pausing only briefly to touch the robes of their prophet before heading down the stairs behind him, many sobbing in relief at the familiar architecture and promise of safety it represented.

Hundreds passed through and I quickly lost count, but as the deck began to empty, an anomaly slowly became apparent. Some of the survivors weren't walking forward with the others. They were standing just where they had been during my dialogue with Velen, letting others pass them by while they stood at attention. I met ones eye and he started back at me, a strange light in his eye. There would be a confrontation of some sort, of that I was certain. Just what it represented though, I'm not entirely certain.

In the end, when the last of the Draenai who were going to move had stepped forward and entered the portal, the remainers stepped forward. Moving with an uncanny coordination the formed ranks in front of me. Forty men and thirty women stepped in time together and went to parade rest, then their right hands were raised to thump into their chests with a synchronized salute.

"We're with you!" one in the front shouted.  
"For Karabor!" another added.  
"Here's your gratitude, Ogre lord!" A woman called out.  
Someone from the back rows guffawed and added "and choke on it!"

I got an odd prickly feeling in my chest and fought to decide whether I should groan or smile. Velen answered this for me. "You requested sailors during our last meeting, Runemaster. I present you the new Thurmite Order."

"Pheta thones gamera!" They roared in unison. _Light, guide our path. _Appropriate I suppose. I hold back a sigh. I suppose 70 is much more manageable than 450 some. At least these look as though they'll listen to me.

"Alright then." I say to the crowd as K'ure comes to float behind me. "Let's get started."


	9. Chapter 9

The thing about riding around on a mountain sized chunk of purple gemstone... is that it is literally the opposite of stealthy. Not that our lightshow this morning had been either, but with the rising of the sun, light was reflecting off the titanic essence rock. If it wasn't visible from fifty miles off by sheer bulk, it would be soon by the crystalline reflections, and that was either the perfect distraction, or utterly disastrous for my upcoming assault on the Black Temple. While Draenai soldiers trooped out of the refugees portal under Velen's direction, I sailed the ship into K'ure's nook, to dock and examine the edifice.

Azarat'Kure holds enough raw power within it's faceted depths that trying to tap into it directly would pop me like a zit. Intellectually that's obvious before I even lay hands on the geodesic structure, but the understanding of such only truly hits me as I do so. The second thing I notice is that the stone itself feels as though it's alive. It has the same pseudo heartbeat the grond stone which powered my ship before the events of the night. Unlike the now destroyed Ogre treasure however, Azarat'Kure doesn't try to flood me with it's magic, seemingly content to remain as is. I wonder briefly if I'll need to fight it for power instead, but a small experiment proves otherwise. It's like inertia. Or sand. Like evocation, I can move as much as my will can reach, but it's not going to come to me unless I act and stir it up.

Make that Evocation near a ley line, I guess, just for the power density.

I suppose I can deal with that. Heading back to the main deck I kneel down in the empty flight circle and begin adding more symbols. It's a bit delicate, as I don't want to impose any spell upon Azarat'Kure itself, but I manage to set up a leech spell that will sustain itself once K'ure lets go of the mountain. Right on cue, I feel gravity shudder as it threatens to drag first the great crystal, and then the ship, down to earth, before stabilizing. Another check on the gem confirms the spell worked, and the rock's not going to imitate the flight spell throughout it's molecular structure. Small blessings.

"Imperator Thurm?" I turn around to meet the eyes of a Paladin. Not entirely sure which order, but the burnished plates and warhammer are obvious.

"Vindicator." I reply.

"Praetor," he corrects. "The mission is ready to begin on your order. K'ure has organized the groups, you're the only strike leader not on station."

"Avengers Assemble." I mutter with a slight grin, and stand up. I tower head and shoulders over the large man. "Let's go then."

My strike group, as K'ure has determined, is unsurprising. Gorka, Gortag, Samaara, Mennu, six of my 'Thurmite order' and eleven dire ravens. Garrosh, surprisingly sulks off to the side, sneaking crafty glances this way and that. He's obviously been excluded, and is planning to participate regardless. Gortag is looking subdued, and Mennu is pensive. As I enter the group, the half dead goatmen straighten themselves and salute.

"Kiel'ndia, Rangari sunbow." Spoke one with orange hair and face tattoos. "We'll purge them with fire, prophet."  
"Naal'Suul, Rangari nightblade" the second girl beside her added. Her voice was subdued, but you didn't miss the elbow in the ribs from Ndia.  
"Jasune, Anchorite of Karabor" added the first of four males. "I shall see to our wounds. Try to keep them minor, the shadows are strong here."  
"Bali'ir, Justicar." Grunted the next one. "Kali'ir, Vindicator" his twin adds.  
"Naal'ga, Artificer." The last one replies, with a nod. "I'll be helping Mennu with any lingering defenses around the city."

None of them have any armor or equipment. I hadn't made any myself since the first clefthoof, no time; and me not having expected to have a force of my own, nor did Velen apparently see fit to loan me anything, so that's the first thing I'll have to fix.

In nod back to each of them in turn. "You'll all follow my orders?" I ask. "Without question? Because that may very well be the difference between life and death when you raid."

Gortag snorts, but Gorka puts her hand on his shoulder and he says nothing. "Right. Fortunately for us, we're not part of the main attack." I tell them. The warrior brothers stiffen, but everyone else seems to relax some. "While K'ure empowers the forces of Tel'Redor for mass ambush, we will be heading for the west terrace, behind the battlements. There is an artifact there which will be vital to not only cleansing, but further holding Karabor against the Horde." I look around. "As it seems everybody has paired up with Dire Ravens, we will not be portaling in as I had originally planned, so I will be crafting armor and weapons for you as we go. I assume each of you has a preferred load-out?"

Rather than questioning me, they begin describing their gear. I make a gesture towards the arkonite mountain and reality planes with a sharp crack, cleanly removing a large chunk of rock which floats towards me. As we talk, the other, armed and armored Draenai mount their birds and vanish from visible sight. I ignore the sounds of claws on my deck and wings beating strongly, as I weave a stone shaping spell to form my groups kit.

For Kali'ir, I weave a great sword with a powered cutting field and some speed enhancements, a tower shield that projects another magical shield and full plate armor. He's used to being much stronger than his famine worn form suggests, so I add runes for strength, endurance and silent movement in addition to the normal shielding enchantments I have on my gear.

Full plate and blade edged kite shields for Bali'ir. At first I think he's fucking with me, but when he demonstrates his skills without the enchantments it seems as though he knows what he's doing. I slap some shielding, strength, endurance and silencing enchantments on top of everything and move on to the next goat.

Jasune simply asked for a staff with a sunburst head and no armor. After some consideration I give him a crystal breastplate of shielding and open faced helm embossed with arcane brilliance and foresight runes anyway. Scrying is tricky if you don't cheat somehow, especially in the field. Full on prophesy even worse. Still, a few seconds advanced notice should be doable with arkonite and could very well save lives.

Kiel is tricky. It takes me a few minutes to figure out how to make a bow with neither suitable materials or conjuration, but when she reminds me she's an adept mage and could settle for a staff or wand in a pinch, it reminds me of Lina Inverse and inspiration strikes. Bow made, she gets fur armor crystal bracers for an extra mana reserve and I turn to her shadow, Naal'Suul. The quiet rogue gets a pair of curved daggers, one enchanted for [Invisibility] and the other for [Blink] and asks for leather armor instead of crystal. I give her a fur catsuit and she nods.

Then I move on to the two builders. Mennu and Naal'ga are taking care of each other, and tell me to buzz off. I watch for a moment more as they pass the shattered arkonite gems I had gathered from Achindoun between them and discussing uses, before I turn to my orcs.

Both are armored in leathers I'd made for them during the first supply run, and Gortag's holding one of the Truesteel blades I'd taken from the Mag'har when I originally visited them. Gorka however, has a request.

"I will be needing four figurines." she states authoritatively. "Two foot tall cylinders carved to look like Sylldross the sea serpent, a Zangar Kaliiri, a clefthoof and a Tanaan Liger."

I offer her a raised eyebrow. "Those are rather specific. Elemental totems?"

She nods. "The forms will be important later. I would simply use rods and carve them later, but the sooner the elementals can enter them the safer our group will be. I can't carve them after as that would hurt the spirits."

I nod, feeling as though I'm missing something obvious. The spell takes a fair bit more focus to form the complex shapes, but soon we're ready to go. As Gorka begins coaxing her spirit friends to accept the totems, I head over to Velen, who is now standing at the prow of my ship, watching the shimmers of the departing army.

"Not coming with?" I ask him.

The old priest shakes his head and pulls an orange crystal from beneath his robe. "K'ure and I shall be the vanguard. As you suspected, Azarat'kure draws much attention. The Naaru shall use it's power to provide it a shield and hide our troops at distance from even the most observant orcs. I shall assist with the The Ata'mal crystal, Shield Of The Naaru, to hold their attention and take the strain off the defenses so as much power goes to the attack as possible."

I nod, eyes fixed greedily on the gem. Like the Shield of Agramar and Bandindoriel, this single item was an ultimate defense. But where Agramar's shield had a time limit and recharge period and Bandidoriel depended on ley lines feeding it, the Shield of the Naaru depended on your affinity with light magic (your faith in yourself essentially) and how much power you could feed it. Here, on Azarat'kure, with that gem... Velen was invincible. And he would be saying here,.. waiting. Just like an NPC.

Ah well.

I return to the dire ravens and mount the largest. "Let's go," I command, and we take flight. As we leave the ship, I feel arcane energy weave itself around my group, lightening gravity and shifting light around us. The sound of violins hum in my ear, and I smile. Going to have to remember to be nicer to the wind chime. It is, after all, the most convenient means by which to save Azeroth. And given the difficulty of making him, that's saying something.

The cross continent flight from the destroyed Hand of Gul'dan to Karabor is quiet, and much shorter than it really should be. K'ure pilots the mountain behind the army, providing the lift we honestly should have gotten from the ship itself, and drawing in the Rylacs the Horde hasn't had the time to eat in desperation while Gul'Dan and Medhiv carve a path across the universe. One by one, the two headed bat snakes are relieved of their riders by invisible Draenai and set free. Wild beasts, barely contained by their skilled riders, the freed Rylac dive on the falling orcs and begin eating them. Where they'll go after...given Shadowmoon and their home on Netherwing Shelf are dead, I expect they'll probably end up bothering the Skettis in Arrak if they don't starve before they figured it out.

Strangely, the demons don't begin to arrive until the second hour when we're only 30 miles out from the temple. Velen burns them down with purifying golden beams of light and a giant purple shield begins to spread itself out from the nose of the flying mountain. The Draenai on their ravens surprise me by ignoring their arch nemesis and sailing down towards the summoners.

As the game of cat and mouse begins, I take my group north, towards the Ata'mal Terrace.

According to Warlords of Draenor, this section of the city was formerly known as K'arani, or the Terrace of K'ara, the Dark Star. Here, K'ara was studied and it's all consuming presence sealed from harming Draenor. It would also be ground zero for Teron'Gor's (or in the AU, Ner'Zhul's) attack on the city. When the Horde is forced to flee Azeroth, this is where Fade Leaf, Heart of Fury, and the Brilliant Star are stored, though only the Heart of Fury remains during Legion, the other two having been removed by Illidan to empower his war effort. Stealing the Heart of Fury is part of the attunment quest chain for the Assault On The Black Temple. In Legion however, the Warlocks return to acquire Eye of the Storm for Wrathion and then raid the main temple for the Soul Core which Illidan promised to the Elves for their service.

Before he and Kael'thas betrayed each other.

What a mess.

Right now, Velen is suspected to hold Spirits Song and Fortunes Smile. He just pulled out Shield of the Naaru, and the other three are currently hovering around the dark portal in the hands of various members of the shadow council. Brilliant star will be lost during Illidans reign, nobody knows where it is; while Fade Leaf is used by the Sentinels to defend the new wardens prison on the Broken Isles.

But that's for later, this is now.

I shake my head and focus myself as we land. The terrace is quiet and largely deserted as we land. The orcs who are here are rushing to the roofs and streets to confront the gigantic rock spewing laser beams everywhere. Naal and Bali'ir dismount, their fist range melee styles being unsuitable towards mounted combat, and streak forward to ambush the two remaining fel orc grunts. Hulking brutes they may be, but a near decapitation from stealth is still a near decapitation. They aren't trolls after all.

We leave the bodies hidden under a rune of Invisibility and follow [Guided by Arcane] to a building at the back left of the temple complex. There, everybody has to dismount as the buildings entrance is too small to ride in. Gorka sets two of the Dire ravens to guard and alarm while we file down into the darkness.

At this point, I'd normally start scrying, or were I playing a game, send our rogue forward to scout for traps. But in the black temple, with void energy impregnating the very stone, scrying is an intensive process and _the shadows breathe_. It'd probably hurt my rep to lose a companion outside of a pitched battle. The Imperator's staff in guard position, arcane whispers steering us away from danger, we descend down. Finally, we reach the bottom, and my sense of danger spikes.

Senseless gibbering issues from the room ahead as a hissing voice frantically wavers between tones and random syllables. Our invisibility fails and eyes open randomly in the shadows. The effect reminds me of Alucard's more intense fights from the Hellsing anime. The creatures here aren't uniform like in WoW, Three tentacle feet, two clawed arms, a gigantic toothy maw and no eyes. No, hellsing had it more accurate. They're a random collection of limbs organs, skin and shell types who's very movement is disorienting.

"Fan out," I hiss "strike to kill. If it's not holy light, the only second chance you'll get is on the next monster."

"Understood, Lord Thurm." one of the Draenai rumbles behind me, and a brilliant golden aura issues out of the doorway behind me. The creatures hiss, shriek, warble, roar and laugh as the light burns them and the voice on the other side of the room goes quiet. I move out of the way and begin casting overpowered force blasts at the enemy. Not all of them splatter as I hoped, and those that do adapt to the attacks, ignoring the second strike, just as [Guided] warned me.

Despite this, the battle doesn't last long. Bali'ir and Kali'ir are unable to summon the light themselves in their weakened state, but with my enchantments they're quite capable of providing a degree of separation between the monsters and the rest of the party while Jasune and Kiel'ndia purge them with light and fire. Shortly, the abominations are ash on the floor and the anchorites staff is clearing the darkness as the room descends and opens up into an amphitheater.

**"En'othk uulg'shuul. Mh'za uulwi skshgn kar."**  
"There is no light after death. Only a place where even shadows fear to go."

"Oh, great..." I mutter in english "Dreadlords. Perfect." Fifteeen feet tall, towering over even my new body, the batlike, almost classical, devil bleeds shadows in the light as though a smoking log in a breeze. My companions look at me in confusion as for the first time since we met, my words don't translate to them, but the nathreziem... he perks up.

"Traveler? Traitor! Tool..."

..._Fuck._ "Very alliterative." I reply, gripping the staff tighter. "Tell me your name, and I'll end all your ills."

The creature throws back its head and begins laughing like I'd just said the funniest thing ever. "The tool does not speak to the users. It does not threaten and menace. That is the masters will. Lay still until I need you."

I stand very still as the creature turns away from us. My blood is pounding in my ears. Does it know Baphomet? It obviously recognizes something. But is it weaker or stronger than the demon who sent me here? "What do you know of the one who sent me here?"

"Begone, ember of Gaia, the eye is not for him. Only I, Culuthrax, can claim it's power and bring the Legion to grovel at my feet where it belongs."

Well... shit. That's got implications all up the ass.

I turn slightly and address my companions, [Arcane Language] once more engaged. "Kill him hard."

The Draenai need no encouragement. Jasune lit up like the sun and the two paladins wrapped themselves in that light as they charged. Kiel began firing spears of holy flame at the Nathreziem and Naal appears at his ankles, her blades slashing, before vanishing once more as the twin tanks close the distance.

Culuthrax however, is irritated rather than hurt. He lashes out with a wing, rather than turning around and grunts when the effort only throws the brothers back a few feet. Bolts of purifying flames crash against the back of his head in a staccato of magic, as Kiel shows off her swiftly acquired acumen with the weapon but only succeeds in raising a sun-burn on our opponents skin. He turns his head, and raises a hand to the wound, looking back at us in something akin to disbelief when by spell splashes across his cheek. A cone of drilling blades comprised of arcane and stolen light tears a line of blood across his pristine white skin and the dreadlord screams.

**"Hoq aN'qov huqth erh'ongg thoq shanDai h'lwn!"**  
"The sunken realm welcomes your yawning souls!"

A great pressure weighs itself down on my shoulders, and I can see from their motions, everybody in the room is suddenly feeling exhausted. A reflection of the demons nature as a Psychic vampire. Several of the Dire Ravens, which have been filing into the room behind us curiously pecking at the walls and furniture, collapse into comas.

Jasune cries out in pain and the aura of light coming off of him brightens in intensity. I glance back, to see him trembling and sweating as though he's just been through an insanity workout. At the same time, the remaining mounts all start screeching. I consider, just of an instant, killing them all, but bolts of purple and black magic issue from their beaks and begin slamming into the dreadlord in a fusillade of avian fury. Culuthrax cries out in turn and raises his wings to act as twin shields against the birds and Kiel.

As the birds attack, Bali'ir, Kali'ir and Naal recover from the earlier attack and launch themselves at the Demons back. Their blades bite in, bit leave little more than scratches, bringing pain and further distraction to the fight.

**"Qam oou iilth ez i awtgsshu amun on'ma! Puul qi'plahf ni oou bormax!"**  
"Let the feast of a thousand maws begin. Give yourself to the plague!"

The monsters flesh crawls alarmingly and scarab beetles begin to pour out of his mouth like a waterfall of vomit. The instant they leave his mouth, they begin smoking in Jasune's light and slow down, but that hardly makes them any less deadly. Bali'ir and Naal dance a furious rhythm trying to stomp the fist sized carrion beetles, but Kali'ir goes down, dozens of bugs burrowing into his flesh and beginning to eat him from the inside. His screams are loud enough to almost drown out the rest of the cacophony of noises in the room. Further, the Dire Ravens are distracted by the bugs, frantically hopping and snapping as they're pursued by the ravenous summons and depriving us of what seems to be our primary DPS.

I beg [Guided by Arcane] for an answer and begin muttering and gesticulating wildly. A bubble of purple light forms itself over the stilling corpse of my minion and a horrible keening sound issues forth as time rewinds and his screams play backwards. The bugs are forced out of him, un-eating his flesh and getting crushed by the edge of the time rift. Several of my companions shudder and ease off their target as I do so, allowing Culuthrax to reposition himself.

There's an unexpected bonus to this. When the dreadlord explodes into a swarm of bats, it cuts off the flow of carrion beetles.

Jasune and I dive to the side as the swarm of bats recombines explosively between us. Kiel'ndia is knocked onto her back and avoids being knocked out by taking the stone on her horns. By the sound of her cry, it's an experience only slightly less painful.

**Sk'shgn eqnizz hoq. Sk'magg yawifk hoq.** **Sk'uuyat guulphg hoq. UULL lwhuk H'IWN!**  
Your fear drives me. Your suffering strengthens me. Your agony sustains me. The DARKNESS devours ALL!

Culuthrax grabs me by the furs and lifts my massive bulk into the air. Around us, shadow tear themselves out or reality and swirl like hungry sharks coming in for the kill. Against all reason, I drop the Imperators staff, raise my arms and slip out of the only armor I've really managed to make so far. Landing, I retrieve Mor'Gok's staff of office from the floor and blink away.

"Order forged through chaos, I rend the darkness. Let there be light!"

Behind Culuthrax a massive beam of light spears forth Kiel's bow and spears the Nathreziem straight through the shoulder, scoring the first meaningful hit of the fight. The overcharged spell is caught on the other side of the room by my upraised staff and forms into a ball. I point it at the boss and speak. "Yata's mirror." The words are unnecessary this time, but the spell lances back at, further empowered by arcane magic and slams into the Nathreziem's chestplate. The armor crumples and folds in on itself, causing Culuthrax to scream and burst into a cloud of bats, leaving the chest piece behind. Its a pity, really, because I'd been aiming for his head.

Culuthrax reforms off to the side of the room, but whatever he'd intended to do there, I don't think it included being buried under a wave of cawing pecking dire ravens. Or what happened next. Gorka, who had been handing back the entire fight, flared with light, and four massive elementals rose out of the totems aranged around her in a square. The magical behemoths descended on the the dogpile of bird and bat and drag Culuthrax off the ground, each spirit holding onto a limb as though a wrack. From beside Gorka, Gortag strides forward, his ashen skin covered in black stone, lightning wreathing his body while streamers of fire and water spiraled around the blade in his hands. He seemed to pause halfway between his daughter and our opponent before flashing forward in a blur of motion and making three flashing strikes.

A rent appeared across the Nathreziem's stomach, spilling black smoke and emerald flame in lieu of guts. Then his wings fell off his back, severed at the shoulder. Finally, another line rend itself across the back of his skull.

But his head didn't come off. The blade just didn't have the power to execute the higher demon. Whether it had expended it with the previous two strikes, or if would have always been that way, I had no idea, but Gortag wouldn't get the chance to ponder the question. Fel green and spirit teal flames gushed from the wing wounds to spray across the older orcs face like a flame thrower. The body dissolves and gives the appearance of being drained into a vortex around the old shaman's mouth. When it ends, the man bows and shudders.

"Father! No!" Gorka screams in shock and fear. To cement her fears, the old man laughs, a sneer tugging at one side of his face. Eyes open, no longer the sparking blue of five elements overwhelming, but the burning poisonous green of fel.

Gorka roars in abject fury, and the elementals she'd conjured grab Culuthrax again. this time, however, he's crucified. Earth secures his legs, Water binds his arms, wind holds his head back, silencing his words and electrifying his muscles. Fire,.. fire draws on the light still emanating from Jasune, where he stands off to the side, healing Kali'ir, and then seems begins to immolate the old orc. The fires turn a radiant blue with golden sparks of Holy Light adding weight to the purification.

'Gortag' only laughs harder.  
**Za awtgsshu wgah uulg'ma ywaq zaix.**  
My whispers will liquefy his mind.

Every spell that runs through my mind in order to excise the demon fail me. Ever last one of them involve killing the host. _But is that really a bad thing?_ A voice whispers in the back of my mind. _He's an obstacle. There are other ways to learn the secret of True Steel. Let him die_. It says. I can't deny that I'm tempted. Getting rid of a fracking **dreadlord**. That's got to be worth a companion or two, right? And the pair of them have become irritating besides.

The voice encourages those thoughts, as [Guided by ọ̡̪̘̦͎̔͒̈́ͫ̃ͧi͖̼̪̟ͭ̈́w͚̤̥̥ͤ̀̊ͭ͊̾̒͢͞e̖̭̩͚̹̋̊ͥ̀͠f̮ͦͦ̃́n̵̬̥̳̮͌͂ͩ͘] continues to show me ever more deadly curses with which to rend the Higher Demons cursed soul with.

Then... a contrast to the voices in my head stills me. [Guided by Arcane] tells me that I'm in danger of missing my chance to claim Eye of the Storm, and I notice just what it is that's wrong. What I'd been thinking was my purchased prescience, advising me on spells and dangers is the voice of Baphomet, and the voice in my head is not my own, but that of the void, similarly trying to disguise itself.

My mind clears as I force all of the voices out and turn towards where we first saw Culuthrax. A single orc, not of my party, stands before a podium. Atop the plinth is a stone box festooned with glowing blue, purple and gold runes.

I only get a profile, but the orcs face is painted white.

Ner'zhul.

In the flesh. _You have only seconds to act. The eye, the girl, or the demon. Make your choice._

_Fuck you, dude. Seriously, fuck you_.

Baphomets voice echo's laughter in my skull, and I move. Purple magic folds itself around my body, and the world blurs in a blink. Between the beats of a heart, I make my way over to the platform where the future Lich King has succeeded in opening the box, and close my hand around innocent blue shard. The next heart beat, and I shudder back into my former position as the [Displacement] ends. With Eye Of The Storm in my hand, new options open up before me. Tendrils of shadow ooze themselves out of the walls and lash themselves to Gortag's body, binding the buildup of fel power threatening to make him explode and take out the rest of the room. Three more tendrils, almost delicately, stab themselves into his eyes and mouth, before retracting, pulling the screaming souls of Culuthrax and Gortag out of the grizzled, battered _emerald_ body.

Then the world goes grey. Everybody is still, no one but me is even breathing.

Well done, I must say. The winged goat hermaphrodite tells me, as he delicately extracts Culuthrax soul from the grasping tendrils of the void. I must say, as an investment, you haven't disappointed.

He begins to extract the other soul, and I stop him. Wait, not that one.

He looks back at me and raises a brow. Oh? You don't want it. The Old Ones weren't wrong on that point. I could trade you the knowledge you seek for it, if that would soothe your lusts.

I'm tempted. But I'm not that messed up by choosing murderhobo just yet. Please?

Baphomet sighs and gently shoves the soul back into the body. Remember,.. **you** asked for this.

Then the world resumed as though nothing at all had happened. Gortag collapsed, Gorka fell upon him, the elements, much reduced, returned to their totems, and the ravens continued to snap at left over bats and beetles.

I walked over to Gorka, where she cradles her fathers shuddering body, and put a comforting hand on her back. She stops shuddering, but doesn't turn around.

"Thank you."

I nod, and walk toward the other end of the room, where Jasune is working on Kali'ir.

"Is he going to pull through?" I ask.

The priest nods. "There will be some mental scars. A terror of bugs, and he may break and flee if we face another Nathreziem too soon, but he should heal in time, Imperator. Your spell saved his life, if not his mind."

I nod, and walk the remaining dozen steps to our surprise guest.

Ner'zhul is still standing there, looking at the empty box, depression hanging in the air around him like a rug. "Betrayer." I greet him, deadpan. "Or is it Patsy?"

He looks up at me, dull hate in his yes. "Interloper." Then he sighs and seems to crumple in on himself. "For over a year, I have dreamed of death. Unceasing and unmerciful. A penance for my crimes. In recent weeks, I dreampt instead of this box. It held within redemption." He laughs bitterly. "I did not deserve it. I see that."

Wehehell... I could use this. "Perhaps. Perhaps not." The ancient shaman looked up at me, confused. I held out my hand, revealing the Ata'mal crystal to him. Too far away to snatch it from me, but close enough for him to know it's power. It's significance. To recognize it. "Your letter reached the frostwolf clan. Though they have been tainted by proximity, they are the only orcs beside the Mag'har not subject to the will and whims of the Legion." I told him. "In time, on the new world, they will redeem the Horde. On top of that, your interference here allowed me to defeat a dreadlord and secure the Draenai's sacred stone, Eye Of The Storm. Redemption...may already be yours."

The old orc ponders this for several minutes, during which my companions begin to form up again. "There are still three sacred stones in the hands of the Horde, and millions of Draeani slain by my word as a false prophet. Even if I have, as you say, redeemed my race, there is still much to weigh upon my soul."

I nod. Yes. I can indeed work with this. "Gul'Dan ordered the expansion of the Path of Glory. Its gone from a small road of bones to a grand trail stretching a mile wide. Return the bones to their Crypt at Achindoun and soothe the spirits of the dead there as you did for the shadowmoon over previous decades. The elements will return to balance in Nagrand and Arak soon, maybe they can return to you as well."

He snorts, and looks over towards Gorka. "I saw your slaves commanding them. It was impressive. I always thought the elements were the ones in command." He looks back to me. "What was my fate. Before you came? Do you know, abomination outside of time?"

I scowled at his jibe. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe that's just how he saw me. "You would have fallen deeper. The Legion will return to Draenor and finish consuming it. By their command, you would enslave the souls of two worlds, yourself in torment. That is, until the heroes of the new world came to slay you. In the end, your soul was eaten by those who sent the dark star."

He nods slowly. "Does anyone survive?"

I shrug. "Draenor survives... after a fashion. The Arakoa. The Ogres. The Mag'har. But only because numerous factions from the new world come here to fight the Legion head on."

"Then it seems I have a lot of work to do." He locks eyes with me. "Will you grant me safe passage out of here? I can already feel the souls of the guardians retreating to the elemental fel."

Shit, that's some deep connection he's got there. I look at the gem clenched in my fist. "Yes. I can grant you safe passage."

With that, I gesture with the Imperators staff and begin carving a portal to Achindoun. The path is familiar to the temple, but the void infusion makes it difficult. Were I not holding Eye of the Storm, I'd probably have to go outside at the very minimum.

When the orc is on his way, Gorka has finally recovered enough to haul her father over her shoulder. She pushes her way through the gathered draenai and, seeing their faces, asks me. "What is the significance of that stone? You went to much trouble to obtain it."

I smirk, then grin toothily. "It's a remnant of the Naaru's origin. There's some debate over whether Argus was the first place they arrived on our plane, or whether the Draenai created them to begin with, some time in their ancient past, but this, and six other stones were part of the very first gift those damned wind-chimes granted the materium. When the Legion came for Argus and it's vast store of knowledge, power, Titan Soul and magical population, Velen used this stone to call upon an army of Naaru. They shielded those millions who remained faithful to Velen and gathered them into the great warp ships. The Genedar, Xenedar, and Zenedar. I have a feeling there were more, but those were all I ever got to see. The stone split into seven fragments with the strength of the call and those seven fragments remained with Velen for 25,000 years. They were the Draenai's ace in the hole. When they couldn't fight, and couldn't retreat, they would bring out the Ata'mal stones."

I created an illusion of seven stones in the air. Red, gold, jade, blue, indigo, orange and violet.

"The Heart of Rage" I indicated the red one "could empower the warriors under the command of it's wielder, multiplying their strength and speeding their healing, at the price of driving them into a blood-haze. The brilliant star" I indicated the golden gem "could grant clarity of thought, peace of mind and increase the casting ability of those under it's wielders command. Velen took both of these with him when he visited Osho'gun, the Genedar. Ner'zhul took them from him as penance for '_trespassing on sacred orc land'_ hah. You know now why it was sacred." I indicated the next one. "Fade Leaf was arguably more powerful than the other two, as it hid the whole of Daenai society from the Orcs and Ogre for more than a century. When Durotan betrayed his Draenai friends to steal it for the Horde, it was a grave blow to Draenai defense. When Gul'Dan used it to hide the screaming Horde as it descended from the Throne of Kiljaden, by pass their defenses and assault the bridges of Shattrath, that was the greatest blow the Horde had yet struck. Those three are now somewhere beyond sight. Probably in the new world."

I skip blue, and move on to indego. "Spirits Song is perhaps the most terrifying of the lot. With it, Velen can command the dead, bend the elements to his will and touch the hearts of those in his presence. How much this actually means to the living is a matter of hot debate as the Prophet rarely trusts himself to wield it. Fortunes Smile," I pointed at the violet illusion "can change the very winds of fate, making the one who wields it lucky. Or their enemies unfortunate. It's not quite known how this is accomplished. Whether it grants prescience, alters reality or enhances and clouds the intuition and senses of those it affects cannot be guessed from the outside. Then, there is the Shield of the Naaru" I pointed to the Orange gem. "It's a perfect defense. Literally nothing can penetrate it, not even Sargeras at his fullest power. Unfortunately, it's power requirements are rather prohibitive, so it's users tend to be Martyrs who sacrifice their lives and chance of Resurrection in order to protect their family and friends."

I pause and look into my hand, smug as a bug in a rug.

"Alright, you've had your fun." Gorka snapped. "Tell us what the Eye of the Storm does, already."

"The eye of the storm is the perfect gem for me. It does exactly what it says." I explain cryptically, my smile broadening, as her scowl deepens. "While wielding it, the user can direct quantities of magic that would normally kill them, in any number of spectacular fashions, in complete safety." I reached up and placed it in the arcane orb atop the Staff of the Imperator. A few gestures and words, and the gem became affixed there. The entire staff would need to be destroyed now before the gem could be removed. "It extends the users control from magic flowing through them, to magic they're merely holding on to mentally. As much as you can comprehend, you can direct, without it affecting your body or your casting." I shrug. "Of course, you still have to be able to raise that much energy, but that's what Ley Lines and places of power are for. Simply put, it completely removes the need for rituals."

"You aren't afraid of somebody taking it from you?" Naal'suul asked in a so far uncharacteristic bout of gregariousness.

I chuckle darkly. "The Imperators staff is soul bound. Show me the entity capable of taking it from me, and I'll give it to them on bended knee." I twirled the rod between my fingers. "Until I die, and after if I did it right, this baby ain't anything more than a pretty stick in anyone's hands but mine." I tossed it to her, and she handed it to Kiel'ndia. The Rangari mage tried to use it to cast a fireball, and succeeded...after a fashion. Magic flowed over the length of the rod and coalessed into a small ball of fire orbiting the head of the staff. But it was no more potent than had she done it with her hands. Less, even. She handed it to Jasune, who's effort yielded similar results.

Scowling fit to murder, the anchorite tossed it back to me, and I snatched it out of the air. "Don't look so grumpy. Stick with me, the three stones the Horde took will end up in our hands as well. And if I die by another's hand, not your own, maybe you'll even see this one back on that old goats possession some day."

I headed towards the stairs. "Come on, hup hup! Gorka, load your dad on a bird and let's get out of here. We've got a temple to cleanse!"


	10. Chapter 10

The trek back up the stairs was quiet for the first three levels. Bali'ir and Gortag were slung across dire ravens and Kali'ir and Gorka hovered silently by their sides, keeping the injured and exhausted fighters in place. Their recovery was going to be something that Magic couldn't simply shrug off so they required special attention. I was happy to allow them that, it kept them out of my hair and not tempting my [Irritable] trait and aided the impression I cared for those under my command. Such beliefs were important to any prospective leader.

Of equal importance are appearing to have a plan, something I'm quite good at even in the heart of chaos, and leading from the front. The distant wise, majestic and occasionally tyrannic king is good for running an empire, but I'm nowhere near that threshold yet. Case in point, my followers number less than fifty and by the sounds of battle up ahead, I am reminded that three of them didn't take part in the last battle.

A small surge of power adds some alacrity to my party as a haste spell snaps into place. The battle is in the room just beneath the surface of the terrace, but by all indications, started on the surface. Dead doom-guard, fel-guard and the occasional dire-raven litter the steps while an aura of golden light strobes unevenly out of the chamber to the left.

I am prompted by [Guided by Arcane] to pause outside the door and in doing so narrowly avoid being flattened by a flying fel-stalker, one of it's magic consuming tentacles severed and squirting puss, the other a smoking wreck. The creatures chest is caved in and I watch, impressed as violet arkonite shard whizzes past my face to spear it through the heart. The creature makes it through the other door before exploding in a violent arcane-fel reaction.

Well, now. Isn't _THAT_ interesting.

Before my party can pile up behind me, I rush into the room and step to the side, taking survey of the encounter. Burning like a star and sweating like a pig, Samaara is parrying the blows of three more fel-guard and slowly working the demons over with her mace. One of her arms is blackened and hanging limp, but still the light fuels her like a vamperic version of Starwars Force, giving her the strength, speed and foresight to solo an army, all the while taking a toll on the spirit channeling it. The process wasn't as bad or as insidious as the void or physically and mentally corrupting like fel, but hurt for the same reason.

Behind her, Naal'ga furiously operated a strange arcane device that on closer observation provided an active resistance type shield. It projected a globular plum aura that ended just behind Samaara's shapely (tail-less) butt. When the shield was struck by the Legions magic, instead of losing a chunk or creating a localized explosion as was normal for order/chaos reactions, a black miasma sprang up, absorbing the chaos before floating forward to seek out the spell casters harassing the trio. Naal'ga sported a blackened crater on one side of his face, another several scars across his stomach and two star shaped burns on either side of his neck. Those last two were telltale signs of an encounter with that fel-stalker that had just died.

Beside Naal'ga was Mennu. My engineer was the only one still uninjured. Grinning like shark he's hefting a gigantic crystal shaped suspiciously like a fantasy assault rifle. Flowing from it's tip was a respectable stream of arcane missiles that buzzed out like hornets to harass the demons assaulting them. His shots were much more spray and pray than precise fire and the blade like bolts of arcane force move far too fast for their normal seeking action, but he nonetheless managed to provide pain to the demons and desperately needed openings for Samaara. How he wasn't hitting her is either a sign of much greater control than is apparent, or a miracle of luck.

As I watch, in the space between heart-beats provided by my haste spell, he slowly loads another shard of arkonite from a satchel hanging off his waist and takes much more careful aim than the wild rain I've been seeing so far. He's lining up a shot on one of the Tothreziem Inquisitors providing magic support to the Demonic forces in the terrace. There are several orcs on the stairs leading down who are missing heads, but whether those are from Samaara's mace or Mennu's gun, I've no idea.

Regardless, these monsters have hurt my followers and they need to die. As my remaining forces flood into the room under my haste spell, I raise the modified Highmaul Staff of Office and cast. At my command, tendrils of shadow leap out of the walls and spit ice at the attacking demons. Transmute shadow to ice isn't merely convenient, it's also ironic and effective against the emerald fire of the burning Legion. The residual void consumes and suppresses the fel power while the ice quenches their fetish for flame by freezing them solid. Time resumes it's normal pace in a shower of bloody popsicles as Samaara's hammer scythes through the suddenly immobile monsters.

The look on her face is precious. I wish now more and more I had a camera. Ah well, the Gnomes will come soon enough.

Naal'Suul shatters the Tothreziem Inquisitor, exploding through him with a blink-strike and Kiel'ndia moves to guard position at the stairway entrance. Seeing the battle...more or less resolved, I begin barking orders.

"Jasune! Heal Samaara! Mennu! Join Kiel at the stairs, we'll be talking about that gun later! Bali'ir, your brother will be fine, heal Naal'ga or join Kiel and Mennu on the stairs! GO!" The draenei hesitate briefly but shock into action at my final roar and I head over to the injured parties. "Naal'ga," I command the mans attention as Bali'ir begins rubbing faintly glowing hands over his wounds "you look dead on your feet. Does that machine require your direct intervention to work? Or can I just haul it outside as a defensive turret?"

The famine cursed goat-man cringes at me, in psychic pain more than physical. "It's not meant to behave this way. The array is a scrying tool, meant to measure the currents of void energy and subtly part them for more detailed analysis. It came in a moment of desperation and i have to wrestle with it constantly to do what I did. As you can see," he gestures to his now fading injuries "it's not totally successful even then."

"You could have just said no." I chuckle slightly at the hypocrisy of my statement. "Do you think you could modify it to make this it's intended purpose? Or take what you've learned to build a dedicated device?" I push. "I've an entire mountain of materials if that's a concern."

He hesitates, eyes lighting up from their pained haze as he thinks about the possibilities. "I...think so. The Genedar had something similar, for tunneling through the Nether as we moved between planets, dodging the Legion and the Void Gods. It would... take me some time though."

I lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder and offer my warmest smile. "Take all the time you need. For now though, see if you and Bali'ir can drag this upstairs and use it to guard the entrance."

He nods and Bali'ir scowls at me before saluting. The pair get moving and I turn my attention to Samaara and Jasune. Naal'Suul has already vanished up the stairs but Gorka has entered the room and begun helping Jasune, drawing water from nowhere to englobe the mutated draenei's wound. It looks somewhere between brilliantly glowing armor and a slime doing it's best to eat her.

"Sam." I say, quietly. "Are you alright?"

She looks at me, unsure. "...yes" she nods. "Did you find what you were after?" I grin smugly, and hand her Mor'Gok's modified staff. She recognizes the crystal affixed to the end of it instantly and her eyes go wide, her knees weak, and I have to catch her so Jasune and Gorka don't lose their grip on the healing spells. "The Gift of the Naaru..."

"The Eye of the Storm," I agree, a hand under each armpit. "Don't worry, it will be put to good use. And with it, the three the Horde stole will be returned to your people as well. Hell, as useful as Eye is, I may not even borrow Leaf, Star and Heart before returning them to Velen."

"...I'll hold you to that" she replies quietly, searching my face. "And thank you... for saving my life."

My grin returns, full of teeth. "That's what the hero does." I chuckle. "Ready to get back out there?"

Jasune spoke up. "She has a severe case of magical exhaustion. Her arm is mostly healed, but aside from a supporting role, she'll be more danger on the front line than an aid."

I give the man a raise brow. "I'll take that under advisement." I reply dryly. "It's up to her though. I think we can trust the Paladins judgement on this..."

She stiffens at that, finding her feet and moving herself off my hands. Her face becomes a determined mask and she salutes. "I will do what is required of me!"

"That's my girl..." I murmur with a smile. "Gorka?"

"The wound is healed" she grunts. "The scars on her soul will take more time" she nods to Jasune "but she is ready to hunt small game."

"Party buffs then" I quip. They look at me oddly and I just turn towards the door with a grin.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The surface, as it turns out, is alot more quiet than the frantic action we just stumbled upon would suggest. With Naal'ga's nether antenna operating, Mennu and Kiel could fire upon the incoming demons with more or less impunity. The Terrace itself also offered a fairly clear field of fire and the converging demons were fewer than there should have been for a game scenario. The reason for this was soon revealed as Draenei began to step into sight, orcish and demonic summoners hanging limply from their arms.

During one of the lulls i approached Mennu. "I wasn't aware the Draenei knew of guns." I told him, conversationally.

He hefted the three rail rifle. "This? They're not common. It's a scaled down version of the Genedar's own armament."

Both of my brows raised at that, but then I remembered the Vindicar and it's solar cannon, salvaged from the Xenedar. "Can you build more of them?" I asked, noting Kiel'ndia's naked look of avarice with a sympathetic smirk.

"Hmm... maybe" he replies. "The enchanting is rather intensive. Each one is a masterwork, and easily destroyed in melee besides."

I shrug. "I have a mountain of the base material and staying out of melee range is the whole point." I rebut him.

He chuckles and carefully lines up another shot, blowing a massive hole in the wing of a doom-guard, causing it to fall out of the sky with a roar of rage. He curses softly and shrugs, turning to me as even more Draenei show up on our terrace and even fewer demons appear in view. "You make a good argument," he concedes. "Give me some time... _without_ _adventures_" he adds pointedly "and I can start making more. It will also delay our deal in which I start teaching you though."

I nod. "I'll need to find some time between adventures myself." [Teacher], [Scholar] and [Crafter] though insist I get on it. And soon.

As we talk, The Prophet himself finally shows up. For a massive city, Karabor was very sparsely populated. With orcs at least. Demons were another issue. This was largely because I had messed up the timeline, opening the dark portal more than a year early, before Blackhand was forced to start banishing tribes from Hellfire and eating the Hordes mounts for lack of game. On one hand, this means that a bunch of the infighting from the "long silence" hasn't happened yet. This is very bad, because not only are the Horde's ranks nearly doubled, but the more monstrous clans are now on Azeroth, rather than eating each other in exile on the far corners of Draenor. On the other hand, the much more moderate clans of Lightning Blade, Whiteclaw, Redwalker and Frostwolf _haven't_ been decimated and my attacks on Cho'Gall have crippled his void side, meaning he won't be taming the Twilights Hammer and the Horde will be forced to fight the Dark Iron clans if he's not strong enough in the Void to play Twilight Ambassador.

The Searing Gorge and Blackrock Mountain are both deathtraps, having to actually fight the dwarves should take care of that overflow quite nicely.

In theory.

I'm pretty sure.

And it's the logical step if the Bronze Flight want to oppose my meddling. Which they will, because one true timeline. And CYOA. And logic. Whiiiich may not apply to dragons. Because alien psychology. Fuck.

"The city is ours." Velen booms suddenly, breaking my contemplations. Much more quietly, he turns to me. "You accomplished what you were here to do?"

I tilt my head to the side. "You didn't see this already?" I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, despite our talks thus far, he probably hasn't gotten the hand of combing through the spaghetti future of Void Prophesy, and void magic is the hole, the caveat as it were, in Light Prophesy. Ironic, given Light is the origin of chaos and Void is base for order, but light prophesy is just shy of deterministic whereas void prophesy is complete chaos. "I guess you have only just started seeing what the darkness hides." The crowd of Justicar, Vindicar and Rangari shift uncomfortably. They trust their prophet, and so they don't attack me, but I'm still the corrupting force.

I show him my staff, Eye of the Storm spinning slowly at it's head. "A Nathreziem by the name of Culuthrax was trying to steal this from the vaults downstairs. He intends to use the seven to take command of the Legion for his dark masters. The winds of fate dictated that he would fail here, but in twenty years the Horde would separate you from Spirits Song," specifically the Blood Elf attack on the Zenedar, I'm pretty sure "and he would take possession of it. Heroes from the new world would battle alongside Nexus Prince Haramad to retrieve it. It would then be traded by the prince to A'dal as part of the Army of Lights effort to retake Karabor... and put the Naaru in the Prince's debt. The Eye would rest in the temple, forgotten, for another decade, until it is recovered by warlocks intent on bringing the Legion to the new world in force. They too would be defeated by heroes of the new world, who would deliver The Eye to the Prince of Dragons... in exchange for... _trinkets_."

"And now you have broken fate" Velen intones, "again."

And sacrificed a powerful soul to my benefactor. Does that make me a warlock? Or am I still a mage? "I've shortened the timetable." I dismiss. "Are you ready to cleanse the temple?"

He nods and look up. Somehow, **_somehow_** I've managed not to notice K'ure moving the entire fucking mountain that is Azarat'kure above the city. It's got to be invisibility, because there was no teleport backlash. From on high, K'ure descends and Velen draws from his cloak, a violet crystal.

My senses go into overdrive as [Guided by Arcane] screams at me. This is no mere chunk of Arkonite, this purple crystal is the same as the orange one in Velen's other hand.

The same crystal I just lectured him on not even a minute ago.

Spirits Song.

_When the Naaru can't run, and can't fight, they bring out the Ata'mal crystals_. Damn I am prophetic. Or is it genre savvy? Not sure.

"Yes," Velen replied dryly "we shall cleanse the Temple."

I look between the two crystals in the prophets hands, the one in my staff, K'ure who is now humming like the worlds smuggest violin and the gigantic crystal mountain. As the pieces fit together in my mind, I can't help but laugh. For all my efforts to break fate, I've accidentally brought together all of the necessary elements to accomplish my task. _Fate is not a line, but a river_. Shield of the Naaru requires power. Azarat'Kure IS power. Shield of the Naaru could cleanse the entire temple by itself, though that would waste a hell of a lot of power. However, in addition to a barrier, it gives those sheltering under it the blessings of the light. The Light wears on the soul, but with the shield, the effect is lessened. With Spirits Song present, the effect should be entirely negated. That leaves the physical trauma of channeling the Arcane power required from Azarat'Kure. But paired with Eye of the Storm that's not an issue, you wouldn't even need Spirits Song in that case. Not really. But... if we build on what we've been doing so far, Netherlight Forging rather than cleansing, you come out with a power gain, despite the great effort expended.

There are other implications however. Spirits Song can command souls and elemental spirits. If there's one thing Draenor's famous for, it's the great spiritual power of the land. There may be no Titan Soul, and with the Hordes predation much of that spirit has been consumed by fel, however... with Spirits Song and a great infusion of freshly minted Arcane power... Yes..., that's a possibility.

Nodding to Velen, I raise my staff and start. Great streams of energy reach down from the floating mountain and connect to Eye of the Storm. They connect and reality begins to warp and twist, but Eye of the Storm controls it long past the point it should have become a mini-big-bang. Under my direction the power splits into three, fueling both Spirits Song and the Shield of the Naaru, while the third tentacle begins spinning up a massive array. A bubble of radiant bliss springs up around us immediately as my array begins to draw in the greater taint of the Black Temple. Into the space between the spell and the Shield, moves K'ure.

From that point, the ritual proceeds...pretty much as we've established it. The area is drained of Void energy and fed into the Naaru's dark eye. On the other side, the Draenai fuel the counterbalance by channeling the light into the remaining light aligned 'eye'. Only this time, faster and without the spiritual fatigue due to the presence of Spirit's Song. Faster still, with Shield of the Naaru absorbing prodigious amounts of power from above, and providing a window into the Light side of the Twisting Nether.

But... as has also been firmly established over the last few weeks, I'm prone to cheating. While the ritual was going on, I direct another stream of power out of Spirits song, and begin weaving it into an infusion. That infusion latches onto the two lower most legs of K'ure where the newly minted arcane power is pouring out of the windchime and into Draenor's ley line network.

The effect of this is twofold.

First, as the core of every elemental is elemental spirit, this will change the infusion of arcane power into a new elemental spirit for Draenor. Gone are the four furies, now there shall be five.  
Second, just as I corrupted K'ure to arcane before, I'm once again corrupting him to spirit now. And as Nature/Life and death are spirit tainted with just the lightest touch of Light and Void... well, you get the idea. This is after all, a stated purpose of Spirits Song. To control elemental beings.

It's not perfect though. While I manage to convert the chosen sections to Spirit (and with a bit of help from [Guided by Arcane] _**not**_ disrupt the ritual) without Spirits Song, Arcane does not convert into Elemental spirit. Not directly and not easily. It forces me to maintain the effort or lose the conversion to the energy outflow. This in turn stalls my further plans, several of them, at least until the city is cleansed, or abandon my efforts to change K'ure. I can accomplish this later, but without Spirits Song... it will _**not**_ be a simple matter. And likely as not, I won't be getting the chance to use it again.

Well... maybe. I suppose it depends on how much of a bastard I want to be. Take it myself, or let Quel'thalas fall. I wonder how high the bar would be for Velen to loan it to me willingly?

What am I talking about? I'm a Mystically Professed [Pirate]! I'll just borrow it, should the occasion come up!

The ritual finishes after four hours, six hours faster than last time we did the ritual on _**this**_ level in Arrak. As the last shadow drains itself from the brick and mortar of the holy metropolis, K'ure stops feeding off the Shield of the Naaru as well, and the mana coming in from above causes the light of heaven to bloom as though it were the early stage of a nuclear explosion. White-gold creation magic and aquamarine spirit essence fills the air with a hum and the entire city _changes_. Like watching the end of Beauty and the Beast where the curse is broken and the Gothic Fortress once more becomes the Princes Palace, the stone becomes varying hues of cream and metal all over the city turns to Coper, Silver and Gold. Burnt out, shattered and smoking crystal work heals and reforms itself, taking on a preternaturally calming aquamarine glow and a dome forms itself over the city. Before I cut the streams of raw power, I can almost swear I see the shadow of an six winged angel forming over the central ziggurat, but either it disperses or I imagined it, because when I blink, it's gone.

That's not the only change either. While not light-forged by the experience (?thankfully?) everybody in attendance looks visibly fitter and healthier. Not merely healed, but with extra muscle definition height, or in the case of the women, curves. In particular, my Auschwitz refugee 'Thurmite' band also looks as though their experience had never happened to them, and a weight seems to have lifted off their brows. I'll have to see later if the effect has extended up to the 3 or so dozen still hiding on my ship, though. It's a bit funny as well, given Bali'ir and Kali'ir are gagging as they struggle to remove their now tightly constricting armor.

I take mercy on them, and the full-plate shatters, leaving them just shy of naked in the clothes the Orcs had seen fit to give them.

The important thing however, is the roar building around me. The Draenei are cheering. The city is cleansed. One of two hearts of the Exiled Ones civilization has been reclaimed. And Samarra's face suddenly fills my vision.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+ Sorry. Is anyone actually interested in watching me struggle to write a hot and heavy sex scene? Despite having had sex, after six attempts I feel no confidence in my ability to write even a lemon.

I awoke the next morning to a warm body curled up against my chest and a sensual moan from somewhere beneath my chin. Opening my eyes and looking down, I smiled to see a completely naked Samaara nuzzling into my chest. Memories of the night came back to me and I grinned broadly. We both stank heavily of sweat and sex and I doubt the hornless, hoofless draenei woman was going to be walking straight for a few days at least. Was I a cad for taking advantage of the moment and the draenei's obvious hero worship? Yes. Did I regret it? I had [Lustful] and [Harem King] as purchased traits. The real question is why I didn't or perhaps wasn't pushed to this sooner.

The part of me that's still human and wants a relationship with someone I know, probably.

Yawning, I stroke Samaara's neck and back, causing her to shiver and open her eyes. They go wide for a moment as she remembers the events of last night. I continue to stroke her back and she snuggles in closer.

She bites her lip and looks up at me. "So, ah...are we going to talk about this?"

I shrug. "What's there to talk about? I didn't force you. We both had fun. You knew what I was after before enthusiastically agreeing."

"Yes..., but is that all?" She asks, worry on her brow. "With my people, we normally court for decades and partnerships are...typically... between lifelong friends or, ah..."

"Professional colleagues?"

She nods. "We also don't have a good history with halfbreeds. In over twenty thousand years, only a handful haven't been the result of rape. It's been of particular issue on this world with the orcs and..." She blushes blue, then nearly black.

"Ogres." I finish for her. "I won't apologize for my people. They are what they are, and few are as kind or eloquent as I."

She stares at me flatly, though the corner of her mouth twitches. "You're not particularly kind or well spoken."

I roll onto my back, and slap one hand to my chest. "Ah, I am wounded. How shall I ever recover!" Looking over at her, my chuckle fades. "As for ogres and halfbreeds go though, you should see the Mok'Nathal."

She grimaces. "I have. The boulderfist has sent them to battle us before. Just prior to the elemental upheaval and rise of the Demonic Horde."

"Does this mean you want to leave?" I ask, softly. She doesn't answer. "Well then, we shall continue our travels, and see where it takes us." I get out of bed and offer her a hand. She blushes again, looking at me, and I smirk. She takes my hand, allowing me to help her up, and my smirk splits into a full-blow grin.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

As Samaara and I return to the ship the Draenei are already busy as ants. There aren't enough Draenei left on the planet to fill even the one city. For quite some time in fact it'll be a ghost town, but as trenches are blasted into the ground on the city outskirts and blocks of white crystal laid in, it'll soon be safe enough for that population to be restored. As soon as I get to the safety of my own ship, If find that the Draenei on my ship have also been restored to full health, though there are fewer than before.

That's gratitude for you.

After asking around, because perhaps the missing 'Thurmites' are down getting provisions, memento's an armor for our trip, but they're not. They've left others to convey their abject gratitude to me while they themselves rejoin their people as they restore their home. For my part,..I don't care. It's depressing, but I still have enough minions to crew the ship. I order Mennu and Naal'ga to begin upgrading my spellbound vessel with Draenic technology and head for the wheel-house. Jamming my staff into the floor of the room, I disconnect the ship from Azarat'kure and begin casting spells.

Ten minutes of conjuration later and the walls have widened, a third lower cargo bay is formed and dozens of crystals begin to warp space. With a grin, I spin the wheel and manipulate the spell holding the crystal mountain so that the flattened egg shape is level with the ground. Then I descend on the mountain as if to land. Except, as the open hull nears the crystal surface, it begins to spaghetti string as though being drawn into a black hole and soon vanishes into the closing doors of the cargo bay. TARDIS shipping and freight, we are go!

Another random crew member, Khan'dur or something I think, rushes up to me, reporting the action as successful. The mountain is in the hull, and there's no spacial sheering as you move up and down the stairs or into the expanded cargo bay.

"There is little room to move however." he told me in a deep smooth voice. "We will have to carve into it as though mining before it is comfortable below."

I shrug. The details are unimportant.

But now for the move that justifies my entire life as Thurm.

It's time to pass through the dark portal.


	11. Chapter 11

The Flying Dutchman hovers 5000 feet above Hellfire Penninsula as I observe the dark portal through the most subtle array of scyring spells I can manage. At this altitude the dutchman is no bigger than a bird to those on the ground, and even less noticeable with the storm system forming itself over the portal. Azeroths atmosphere is thicker than Draenor's and the high pressure system caused by the air rushing through the gigantic door is already causing problems on both sides. Still, I have to be careful, as Gul'dan has the area almost swarming with Eyes of Kilrogg. Despite these conditions, odds are, there's no way I'm going to get through without being spotted. But, then again, I don't particularly NEED to avoid detection, do I? I just need to keep under the radar long enough for the horde warlocks NOT to raise a shield of fire and force.

Walking back to the wheel, I lift Garrosh off of it and onto my shoulders, before spinning it and direct us into a dive.

"It's rather beautiful, to be honest..." I look over to see Samaara standing one not-hoof against the opposite rail, her hands braced against the hammer she'd been using at the Black Temple. "All the reds and purples. It almost makes the place look like a painting rather than the rotten core of a cursed desert."

I nod absently. Changes to the landscape have begun to happen rapidly since our latest foray into the ley lines. As happens around many Draenai settlements, arcane corruption has begun staining the wildlife shades of purple and silver. Tanaan, while still clearly and visibly dying, stubbornly retained what amounted to scrub-lands along its coastline, and would until it was turned into ships in the Through the Dark Portal Campaign when Draenor would break into Outland. Now, with the re-balancing of fel and void in favor of arcane, most of that taint has been contained to the Path of Glory leading from the gated mountains to the Dark Portal and the Path of Victory leading from the Throne of Kil'jaden to the gates of Shattrath. The fel power seeping out of the portal will still continue to strengthen these blights and sap the life out of the landscape; even worse now that there's an arcane/fel reaction creates storms of raw explosive mana where the two meet. Even so, the world is no longer prey simply feeding the ravenous chaos with an easy diet of life and souls.

Though, it _does_ look pretty from this altitude. Like glitter and rainbows.

"TALLY HO!" I call out, across the ship, using magic to augment my voice. "DAMN THE CANNONS AND FULL SPEED AHEAD! WE'RE RAMMING THE PORTAL!" I chuckle as that prompts a flurry of movement among my crew, half of them moving to what are essentially battle stations and begin fueling the shields, and the rest cowering around my Naaru at the front of the ship.

Silly goats, don't they know those in the front die first?

"So!" I call over to Samaara as the wind picks up speed. "You're a Vindicar then? I though you were a Rangari?"

"I am," my new lover replies, "the Hammer and armor were a gift from Exarch Maraad before the last battle! They belonged to his sister before her death at Bladewind crossing. I'm not certain whether he was being generous, grateful or trying to tell me something, but they saved my life!"

_Maraad_, I think, flabbergasted._ Garona's uncle? Yeah, that was a message._ I shake my head and fine tune our course, making micro adjustments as we build up speed. _The question, I suppose, is whether he's giving his tacit approval of her relationship with me, or trying to warn her off by citing his sisters experience. Why do I have to keep telling people I'm not enslaving my minions? My fault for choosing an Ogre body I suppose_.

That's a concern for later though, right now, the important thing is picking up speed without becoming a shining beacon for the entire horde to target. At least... not until it's too late to do anything.

Then [Ambition] reminds me of our latest adventure and it hits me. Between the Eye Of The Storm and the glut of fel energy on the peninsula, hah! I'm such an idiot!. Gesturing with my left hand, I summon my staff (I really should rename it) and begin casting. Power flows up from below decks to form a bullet like shell around the ship and Fel power begins to gravitate towards us, ablating the shield in a comet's tail of raw energy. From the outside we look like an emerald fireball, an infernal on course for a siege landing on Gul'Dan's greatest creation. The warlocks will be in a tizzy, sure, but instead of trying to erect a trap to capture or slay me and my crew, they'll more likely be trying to scurry like cockroaches to avoid the wrath of their patrons.

The wind picks up even faster across the deck, with out increased speed, and Garrosh drops off my shoulders to settle in my hood, hands gripping either side of my head. Kids laughing hysterically, whether in joy or terror I don't know, but it's distracting. I push faster, and pull harder, increasing the intensity of the light screaming just beyond our hull and then,.. we hit.

Transition through the dark portal is supposed to be instantaneous. Mana forms quantum strings binding two places together across meaningless universal distance and then forces the two points to be the same point; there's no transition, because there's no distance to cross through. As we pass through however, that doesn't seem to be the case. The portal is a tunnel of emerald and black, dancing and weaving together in an impossibly complex pattern that claws at my mind. As we float across the cosmic gap however, blood red magic trails off my skin as though I'm bleeding in the water, and begins to mix into the lines of portal magic. The tunnel shudders and Baphomet's face consumes everything. It's grinning at me, smugly, and opens it's mouth. Down the throat is azeroth, shining like the light at the end of the tunnel, or an opposing train, coming to dash us against the tracks.

At the front of the ship though, K'ure burns like a purple star. The deck around the windchime splits and shatters, bathing the Naaru in a column of purple white and with a flash the portal shudders again. Baphomet is gone, and the streamers of light around the portal become a mix of neon Purple, Green and strobing lightning. Something inside me snaps like a spring, and suddenly we're on the other side.

The Dutchman erupts from the other side of The Dark Portal and I wrench backward on my staff as though it were the stick of an aircraft. A crude wooden watch-tower shatters against the hull and several mangrove trees are knocked down as we roar out and up over the swamps of the Black Morass.

Here too a storm hovers over the portal, this time a swirling disk of clouds rather than a rising thunderhead, and we quickly escape into the cloud.

Freedom... is sweet.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

That night, Gul'dan made a speech commemorating the fel spirit which had blessed their invasion of the new world. A feast was held with a thousand of the six legged lizards spit roasted over fire pits and endless pots filled with mud-fish and fresh greens. The Horde had not eaten so well in nearly ten years, and though there was precious little grog to pass around, the tribal chieftains broke out the thick cleft-hoof skins anyway. Fights and dancing broke out spontaneously across the marsh and though most of the fights quickly became mud-wrestling, spirits were higher than any point since the elemental upheaval.

Despite this, the Frost-wolf tribe was somber. Their chieftain and his pregnant wife cast a dark shadow over the group and their great wolves snapped at anyone who came close to their small clearing. They had been like this, in fact, since they had returned from visiting the plague camp, Garadar. The whole tribe whispered and muttered about what they must have seen there and the horrors it would take to put them in such a persistent fowl mood, but none of them dared bring it up with their leader. Fair and even handed as he was under most cases, Durotan was also famous for his berserker rages which he suppressed ruthlessly, but not always successfully.

What, they asked, did he still have to fear? The Horde was in a new world! Just as Gul'dan had promised it was lush and green and had plenty of room for the Horde to expand. Word was, there would be foes soon, weak enough to be sport, but strong enough for the warriors not to pity them, and better still, the elements thrived in this land! Already furies of water, earth and life had approached the tribes! The warlocks, former shaman of the old world, had been rejected, but new shaman were even now rising, making the Horde stronger than ever. A dozen of even within the Frost-wolf clan! These elements were harsh however, making demands and engaging in combat with those they felt worthy. And unworthy. But this too was good. The strong, after all, have the only right to lead.

That was why, when at the end of the feast, in the dead of night, Durotan told them to pack up and prepare to move out, the clan was thoroughly confused.

And finally... finally the story came out. Gul'dan had not saved them. He had betrayed them. The Draenai were as much victims of the elemental upheaval as they were. Gul'dan had attacked and killed the furies of old, and shifted the blame upon the mysterious blue freaks. Worse, he was going to do the same to this world, and Durotan wanted nothing to do with it. The elements had told him of a mountain where they could live free of the Horde and their demon magic, and He and Draka were going to lead them to it.

Many Frost-wolf wanted to attack Gul'dan and the warlocks, punishing them for the deceit. A few snuck away into the shadows, intent on mutiny, not caring if what had been said was true, Gul'dan was strong, and Durotan a coward. Most however were confused. What should they do? Even while they agreed with the caution their leader led them with, The Horde did not retreat, but that was precisely what Durotan wanted them to do. Should they be loyal? To who? Was it more dishonorable to leave or to stay? Did one betrayal beget another? What of Mok'Gora?

From 5000 feet my crew and I watched this all unfold whilst I plotted our new course. Scry&Die arcane explosions took care of the shadow council traitors, splattering green meat across the swamp to the notice of few, and the cheers of the bloodthirsty and I contemplated briefly offering the wolves a portal through which to escape. To be entirely fank, however I didn't care enough about them to make the effort. Thrall would survive, as would Drek'thar and most of the tribe, the Bronze Flight would make sure of it. If they couldn't take advantage of my forewarning and benevolent [Murderhobo], they didn't really deserve the opportunity.

That, and their flight could serve as an early warning for stormwind. An apology of sorts, on my part, for dropping the Horde on them a year early.

As all of this goes on below, my crew and I are having our own party. It's a much more sedate affair than the orcs raucous spree. The central deck, between the two primary masts has been warped into a raised table, while the hole K'ure blasted through my poor ship becomes a spiral grand staircase through which provision are brought up and laid out. The atmosphere is cheery and languid, much like a cocktail party, only without the plethora or small back dresses and tailored suits. Off to one side, Draenai belly dance to improvised instruments. Their clothes are fairly appropriate to, which I should really do something about soon.

But back to plotting...

I'm immediately distracted again by Naal'suul, of all people dropping down to lounge beside me. Samaara, looks across my chest, surprised, but smirks as the quiet Draenai girl grabs my other arm and moves it to be a headrest. "Do I get a say in this?" I ask amused.

"No," the rogue replies, simply.

I look to Samaara, who only laughs at me. "Is this not what you wanted?"

I narrow my eyes at her. [Lustful] and [Harem king] shut down more or less anything I can say in opposition. "I like to know my girls first."

"Culuthrax." Naal counters, adjusting herself for comfort. Samaara, the traitor supports her. "She is right, a bond made in battle is an intimate one. And she swore loyalty to you when you gave her the option to leave with the rest of the prisoners you saved."

Heh, I guess I can put off plotting for one night. Huffing, I lean back into my plush conjured seat and begin to sing softly, " Hey, once upon a younger year, when all our shadows disappeared, The animals inside came out to play. Hey, when face to face with all our fears we learned our lessons through the tears; made memories we knew would never fade..."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The next morning dawned steel grey and drizzling. Somewhat expected, between the swamp and the storm over the portal, but no less dreary because of it. Breakfast is a flurry of activity as domestic spells rush to clean the damp our of the lower levels of the ship, both living quarters and supply bays. For my part, I build a pavilion and lip around the hole, adding shielding runes to the gaps to keep out moisture. They're a bit crude, going to far as to strip sweat off as you pass through them, but they also dry waterlogged clothes, so nobody complains or tries to fix my handiwork

After morning showers, food and maintenance are done, we get underway once more. A thoroughly comfortable nights 'sleep' has me energized and the plots come thick and fast.

First stop, Zul'Gurub.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The Black Morass, while a massive swamp, exists within a system of mountains; two nested crescents totaling an area roughly the size and shape of Nevada. The inner circle, roughly the size of Maine, holds the Dark Portal at its center. The Portal itself is only 500 feet tall, and half finished, looking more like a stone henge than it's final Gothic form, covered with runes and flanked by statues of robed figures. Said figures don't make much sense, given the expansion of the orc and draenei culture, but I figure they were how Kil'Jaden and Medhiv appeared to Gul'dan. Seen from the air, the land where the portal sits is oddly geometric, and suspecting an ancient troll city, I reach for [Guided by Arcane] to confirm and perhaps pick up...diplomatic offerings for the Gurubi Emperor.

Only to find nothing. No alien inspiration or guiding visions greeted me. There was only... silence.

No... not silence. Not quite. No self respecting mage could ever forget the call of the ley lines, and my purchased skill from [Powerful], [Class: Mage] and [Profession: Crafter] were all still there, waiting like a muscle for me to instinctual twitch, but my cheat sheet... was gone. I stood there, frozen at the wheel, my grey skin a pale clammy silver, my breathing shallow and fast for several minutes, internally panicking, but nobody seemed to notice.

A calming light washed over me, and I corrected myself. _Almost_ nobody. "K'ure." I rumble, fixating on him, my memory flashing back to the events of the portal crossing. The red mana. Baphomet. The flash. Broken. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?" _you little shit_ was not spoken aloud, but it got the message.

_**You were not finished on outland**_ the false god sung like a thoughtful violin. _**What was it you told the demon when he became your patron? "I was to build worlds" . And yet, you left the one you were given... so your patron sought to collect on the life he had granted you or turn you back. But do not despair, there was a reason you chose this world in which to be reborn. You will find a way.  
**_  
"I didn't choose this world," I hissed, "HE did. I just got a pick of my circumstances." Nevertheless, K'ure's laughter and words struck a chord with me. I KNEW this world. Without [Guided] it would be...hah, harder is something of an understatement, but it would hardly be impossible. Somehow... somehow the thought that I would now have to work for my victories struck me with a sense of satisfaction.

I spat on the deck, cheat sheet or not I _**had**_ been working for my victories, dammit!

"If you're going to mess with my head," I told the infernal wind chime, "the least you can do is replace my sense of prophesy."

The multifaceted elemental hummed pleasantly, conveying it's approval at how well I was taking this. _**Of course. Many of your plans would have required my intervention to complete regardless. Reaching Pandaria for instance. The Sha of Pride would trap you in the mists for months feeding off you before turning the Dutchman away for good.  
**_  
My heart skipped a beat. Well... huh. Yeah, I could see that. Save the fact that I had K'ure on board and would have shamelessly used him to break through. Pride would need to work _fast_ to stop me from cheating. Building my new life up to cheat as hard as possible was something I was Proud of.

Some background on the Gurubashi though,..

1700 years ago, the Gurubashi empire was spread across this entire area. The Black Morass (Nevada), the Swamp of Sorrows (Nebraska) and Stranglethorn Peninsula(California). Stranglethorn Vale was in fact twice as big as it is now, making the entire empire larger than the India sized subcontinent of the Arakkoa Spires. Brightwood and Elwynn to the north, were ruled over by the Gnoll tribes in the same way the Orcs 'ruled' over Draenor and Redridge had recently been taken from them by the Dark Iron Dwarves, at that point still closely allied to Ironforge. Both kingdoms were infested by Murlock and Khobold tribes, but, really nobody cared as both races were hunted a common foodstuff.

Unfortunately for the Gurubashi, something..._happened_ to Hakkar around that time. The god went from being the loa of wind-serpants to the all devouring Soul-flayer. This sudden shift wasn't a problem initially, and was even praised by the Zandalari ambassadors as the Gurubi returning to classic manners of worship. When the Hakkari zealots turned the empire to conquering the Gnols, challenging the dwarves for Redridge and domesticating the Kobolds and Murlocks, Zandalar celebrated the return of empire building. There was a brief golden age and the two troll races began making plans of alliance...

Until the Ambassadors discovered the true extent of Hakkars hunger. It wasn't just dwarves, gnols, murlock and khobold being sacrificed to fuel Hakkar, but trolls as well. The Hakkari, renaming themselves the Atal'ai, had been waging a quiet civil war among the jungle tribes and killing all dissenters. When Zandalar confronted them, it became an open civil war. That war heated up to the point that Neptulon the GOD of water elementals himself made an appearance to sink half of Stranglethorn like Leviathan at Kyushu in order to stop Hakkar from being summoned.

Terrified and decimated by the Tidehunter and pursued by the Zandalari, the Atal'ai retreated to the Swamp of Sorrows, then densely populated and positively urban by troll standards, where they began sacrificing entire cities to the Blood God, thus earning the region its new name. The Atal'ai were partially successful, too, as the bones and nest of Hakkar rest in the bowls of the temple into vanilla WoW. Even so, the combined armies of Gurubashi and Zandalari stopped them before Hakkar reached full power and slew the god before burying him and his priests.

Needless to say, the trolls had a large number of cities just scattered around potentially holding hidden artifacts of great value!

I say great value, because anything else would have already rotted away.

Like the trolls themselves, not to put too fine a point on it. Honestly, what kind of civilization would go for 1500 years without so much as reclaiming their old cities? That in particular was one of the things I was hoping to investigate. See if maybe the wars with Stormwind over the last 300 years might be the reason for their stagnation. A redeeming factor as it were.

Without [Guided by Arcane] to tell me though, I'd have to do the investigation myself, and worse, interpret the data, something I've absolutely no qualifications in. Well, that, or mess with time scying and attract the notice of the bronze flight. I'll have to spend a little time squatting in Karazahn after Medhiv dies to take a look through that time vortex.

With a sigh, I begin plotting how precisely to get in the trolls good graces. Even if only temporarily.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

As much as I miss having [Elementalism Arcane] to guide me, there are fringe benefits to K'ure shielding me from Baphomet. In particular, my purchased traits are now learned behaviors, rather than magically enforced compulsions. For instance, I've now gone a full day without killing anyone, and rather than having a murderous headache and feeling as though ants or scarabs are crawling under my skin, I'm merely plotting who needs to die so that the trolls will take me seriously, and how many would be overdoing it. [Scholar] and [Teacher] still gnawing at me, but without the pressure of [Murderhobo] and [Ambition] keeping me moving, I can take a more measured approach.

Particularly... the nature of Truesteel. [Crafter] and [Laborer] ho.

After setting the ships course for Zul'Gurub, and going back to the archaic method of adjusting the deck runes for a cruising speed of 40mph, I stalk down through the ship looking for Gortag. I find him on the third level meditating by what should normally be a cannon port. Swirling around him are elementals of dust, cloud, lightning and wind. He still looks like shit from the battle a few days ago, and Gorka is busily applying glowing water to his back. That he's bright green and her work to heal him isn't working more or less immediately is an indication of just how damaging Nathreziem possession is.

When I sit down in front of them, he grunts heavily and his daughter smiles at me. "He will recover?" I ask her, gruffly.

Her smile gains teeth, and she nods. Gortag himself huffs, and opens an eye to glare at me. "My father is strong, he will recover before the next battle." She looks down at him "I have faith, the great spirit has promised it."

The old shaman smith twists to look back and growls "do not treat me as a child, daughter." Turning to me he continues. "You know better than to speak without purpose, ogre. Why are you here?"

Getting straight to the point, I explain. "The tribe we are about to meet have a champion who communes with this worlds Fury of Water. They call him the Tidebearer and he carriers with him the mantle of his position, the Stone of Tides. It grants him your power with the elements without the need for training, and extended life, but ever calls him and the stone back beneath the waves until they give in and vanish, only for the stone and a new Tidebearer to show up once more in the next generation. I was hoping you would teach me, that I may claim this mantle and with it guarantee my words are given all due weight. The troll are not ones to suffer others lightly and killing them does not grant their respect as it does with orcs and ogres." It breeds 1000 year long blood feuds, as a point of fact...

He considers this briefly before spitting. "I cannot teach you about the elements now. This world is... different. Its elements hostile. Come back later."

We glare at each other for over a minute as I consider other means of faking it. Arcane can be easily converted to ice, and elemental binding is not out of my league with [Powerful], but it will be... harder. "They despise the fel, much as the elements of your old world feared it. They will respond better to one who is not so...marked..."

He continues to glare and so I move on. "Truesteel then." I counter, as his daughter frowns at the pair of us.

He growls deep in his chest, and then is stopped by a hacking cough, which ends in blood, before Gorka grabs him, and begins applying the healing waters to his chest. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything." I tell him, bluntly. "Treat me as though I know nothing..."

"An easy task!" he interrupts, laughing once more, before being punched in the head by his daughter, before she goes back to healing him.

I nod a grim thanks to the woman and continue. "...but am a highly gifted student." I finish. "Tell it to me short, first, and then explain deeper."

The pair of us glare at him, and Gortag shifts uncomfortably before sighing. "At its base, true steel is the smelting of trueiron ore in a furnace heated by the soft blackrock ore."

Coal in other words, "but what makes them special? Iron and coal are easy to find, but Iron burns and resists when exposed to magic."

Gortag huffs lightly. "Catch on fast," he mutters quietly. "The difference between Iron and True Iron is that True Iron has been infused with Elemental Earth until it has ceased to resist. This takes a great deal of time and is usually harvested as slag by shaman of the Blackrock tribe. Black Rock ore is similarly infused with elemental fire beneath the earth where it has no air to burn. These can be placed into a forge on their own, anywhere in the world and produce truesteel weapons, but these are inferior. Like a bird bone and ogre bone of the same size. Both are bone, but one is far easier to break and a poor tool of magic."

That would explain why players couldn't make shit for Ilvls while the Blackrock Forge raid could. "To truly get the most out of True Iron, there are... steps that must... should... be taken. The first is to negotiate with the elemental inhabiting the Iron and bring it with you in the ore. Second, one should do the same with the Blackrock. Third, the bellows used to fuel the flame should be blessed by an elemental of wind. If you do all of these things, you will create a slag elemental within the forge which whom you must negotiate to forge the purest of blades and armor. Without the elemental, or it's cooperation, you will spend days, weeks even, hammering the metal into the proper strength and shape. With the aid of the elemental, you can create a blade in hours, or minutes. The final step, is to quench the working in the water of an elemental. Plain water will ruin the forging, water given to you by an elemental will work, water harvested from the elemental will strengthen the work, and cooling it in the elemental itself will yield the best possible results; a metal that channels and amplifies the will of the elements."

He looks at me, as though searching my soul. "Do you understand now?"

I did. From there, I could also see how this would apply to Pandaria's Living Steel; Trillium. "Could the process be shortened by creating a slag elemental and feeding it Iron?" I ask him, "Is the infusion process strictly necessary, or is it a matter of convenience?" Azeroth's equivalent material, elementium was forged through similar, but more natural processes on the elemental plane but could be faked with near the same quality by alchemists mixing elemental essences into a metal before placing it in a blacksmiths forge. The big difference being, elementium was nearly immune to the four elements unless used by a highly attuned shaman, where Truesteel readily absorbed and amplified the powers.

Probably a difference in the base metal, now I think of it.

"It... I do not know" the old fighter floundered. Leveraging himself back into a meditation position he closed his eyes and began to glow and spark with electricity.

While he communed with his elemental friends, I turned to his daughter. "He will be healed? I thought fel infusion made orcs stronger."

She grimaces. "The fel blood Gul'dan offered does. Father described his experience with the winged one as being similar to when you forged us upon the remains of Osho'gun, only with rancid meat against your soul instead of burning coals and ice." She looks back at him and sighs. "The great spirit told me that this might happen. It also told me father could be reforged once he had recovered, or find his way through on his own. Each would lead down a different path, including doing nothing. All three paths would lead to him leaving your service at the great tree." her visage became frustrated. "The great spirit would not tell me his fate beyond that point, but it did not seem peaceful."

I nodded slowly. So, the battle of Hyjal will still happen. Maybe. He could just leave when I go to kick the elves asses into gear.

Not worth thinking about right now. The old man was coming out of his meditation. "It... could work." He replied finally. "The elements do something similar here with a material named Thorium, for one of their own gods. An enemy,.. and savior. He used it for the head of his hammer."

...Thorium? Figures it would be the same metal as Arcanite transmutation. There must be something about the radioactive metal that made it absorb magic well. Like silver and gold with Light or cobalt with water and aluminum with wind. Perhaps the same reason it's used as the breeding material in nuclear reactors? Something to think about.

That still left the problem of how I was going to forge myself some truesteel armor and gifts. First, I would need a forge of some sort. Then some iron, a fair bit of it too, given my bulk. And for both the forging and my ruse, I would still need to learn how to work with elementals.

This quest chain just kept getting longer and longer. If only I had some...thi...ng...

I am an idiot.

I know what to do now.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Stormwind is a young country. Practically an infant the way Azeroth measures these things. Technically founded 1200 years ago as a vacation lodge at the tail end of the Arathor Expansion, it almost immediately became independent as the Arathor noble families began to fracture into smaller countries and city states led by independent kings. Kul'Tiras led the world in sea trade, Gilneaus in overland trade and force of arms, Lorderan in religious piety, farming and fine crafts due to their trade with the elves. Seeing their grip on the empire of man crumbling in their fingers, Strom began sending expeditions south rather than inflame the battles of succession into full blown civil war and conquest. It was at this point they made contact with the dwarves and Gnomes, bonding over a common love of honorable battle and beer.

A party led by members of the Royal family went further south than any of the others, and thus the City-State of Stormwind was formed. Despite this however, Stormwind did not become a kingdom worth the title until 300 years ago, as the dwarves were building towards their own civil war and the summoning of Ragnaros, and then their expansion was into the fertile farmlands of Westfall pushing out the Gnolls and Gurubashi trolls. They didn't officially take Elwynn and Brightwood forests until a mere century ago, and spent the next 25 years embroiled in war with the Gnolls culminating the the unification of the Gnoll army by Garfang of Redridge. The Gnoll wars forced the fledgling kingdom of stormwind to become tough and independent in short order, as with the exception of token assistance from Boralus all of their calls for aid from the north were ignored. Help came, bizarrely, from the recluse Guardian Agwynn of Tirasfal who had retreated to the nearby deadwind pass some 500 years prior establishing the close relationship between Stormwind and the Guardian, and the Church of Light, who's clerics in the freshly founded Northshire Abbey proved instrumental by practically eliminating casualties.

As a result of this, Stormwind became proud and isolationist pioneers, leading them foolishly to not request aid from the northern kingdoms until things were too late.

Having taken Redridge, Elwynn and Brightwood from the Gnolls, and reaffirmed their trade with the dark Iron, it wouldn't be long until Stormwind came into conflict with the Gurubashi. The trolls were after all, ancestral enemies of Humanity, and held sway in the only direction of further expansion, south. Stormwinds first troll war was a bloody affair, which created many distinguished heroes on both sides. It also gave their King, Barathen the Adament a distinct distaste for war; something he tried, and failed, to instill in his son, Prince Llane. Between Barathen and Llane, there are several human fortresses across Stranglethorn veil even before WoW set up permanent horde and alliance stations there.

One of these bases, Grom'gol in the future, is currently called Fort McConnell and is maintained by Llane both as a middle finger to the Gurubashi, and a layover point for merchant vessels heading for the goblins at Booty Bay.

This also made it perfect for an appearance with no less than four functions.

"Remember, target the buildings themselves," I ordered my Thurmite sailors as I walked toward the railing "not the people if you can help it. We want to sow panic and dismantle the fort, not stop them from bringing news home." I explained sternly, lifting one of the orc corpses I had summoned from Gul'Dan's party. "They have to believe they're being attacked by orcs, but any we can leave alive to tell their tale is another warrior to help your cause."

They all nodded, and began pushing their own corpses onto the ledge beside me. "Any questions? No?" And with that, I stepped backward off the edge of the ship.

I was immediately joined by an army of thirty or so dead orcs. Amusingly not one of whom I'd slain personally. Some of them had drowned in the marsh, dead drunk on grog, others had been murdered from behind by other orcs settling grudges, two had even been killed by crockalisks, but most, probably just a little over half, had died due to the fel crazed monsters conception of 'Partying'. If there's not at least 3 deaths at a wedding, it wasn't an event.

As we fell, I wove the spell that would make my ruse one to remember. It wouldn't be enough to animate them with an arcane spark, I was no necromancer, hardly enough of a warrior to program the arcane intelligence's correctly and no where near good enough at multitasking to puppet thirty automatons through independent battles requiring both action and reaction in real time. It was hard enough managing twenty separate spell elements while aided by [Elementalsim Arcane]. What I could do fairly easily though, was craft illusions. Before my orcs and I even hit the ground, a thundering roar arose from the jungle as a flood of green creatures seemed to spawn out of the brush and charge the fortress.

As that happened another simple command to my hide cloak and I was soon floating over the battlefield directing digital sprites as though a commander playing Warcraft 1 proper. The orcs I had dropped quickly covered for the fake ones rushing the gates as their spells released on contact, transferring all of their momentum into explosions or arcane energy which ripped through the gates and buildings of the fort. The orcs bodies weren't broken by their fall, but the entire armed camp had become a kicked over ant hill.

My illusionary orcs streamed through the broken gates, and gaps in the walls and immediately began burning things. From on high, my draenai set fire to any empty tent or building the 'orcs' passed by and flung spells of force at any armored warrior brave enough to face off against his opponent. While the goblin bruisers wore Iron armor, which smoldered as though hit with fireballs, the Stormwind soldiers wore steel armor, which absorbed most of the spell fire and dissipated it cleanly. In both cases however enough of the power bled through to simulate the bone shaking blows of Orc warriors and the monsters illusionary flesh gave the impression that the enemy could not be beat. It wasn't long until the tradesmen were in full retreat, and Stormwind, stout Stormwind, closed ranks behind them, turning the route into a fighting retreat. Of the dozens of boats, five of them were scuttles by spells from on high before they were properly boarded by anyone, but the vast majority of them got away. Not scott free, this had to look real after all, fires and arcane cannon-blast holes gave each of them a scar or two to sell the story.

That however, was just phase one. Booty Bay and Stormwind would 'know' what had happened here, placing the pair of them on alert and warning the goblins off siding with the orcs, but that was only the beginning. Next the fallen would need to wake up to find the orcs bodies and bring them to Stormwind and booty bay to confirm. Before that happened however, my minions and I needed to harvest enough Iron to make this trip worth the risk. The flying dutchman landed behind me and I began dismantling the more solid buildings of the fort, looking for the armory. We found it just as the first Trolls began to pop out of the underbrush, just like the 'my horde' had and I ordered the Draenai to begin loading the equipment into the ship while I went out to greet them.

Phase 2 complete.

One of the things the trolls want, more than any other commodity or privilege, is their ancestral lands. They're much like the Native Americans their art was designed to mimic in that regard. They also have the same proclivity for abandoning cities to ruin and never reclaiming them. As I made my way over to where the lurid mohawks of the Skullsplitter and Darkspear tribesmen were poking through the gates, I worked on summoning a series of water elementals and ordering them to aid my draenai by searching the burning tents stalls and buildings for metal. Mage bound elementals aren't nearly as intelligent or useful as the shaman contracted type, but they didn't need to be, the Trolls noticed immediately.

"Eh Tide mon, you do dis?" One of the trolls asked. I cast Arcane language on the group of them, as subltly as I could and summoned another pair of 'elementals' whose only function was to flank me. "Dis be good work mon." The troll continued, lowering his spear.

I bow. "Thank you. I suppose you're natives?"

"Ya, mon. Where ye be from, an wat beef ya be havin wit de hoomons?" He asked, as the other trolls began skulking into the fort around me.

I pull up a wall of ice. "I'm sorry, I can't allow you to kill the survivors." I tell them, as the spears are raised in an instant and dark powers begin to skitter across their fingers and tikki masks. "they still need to carry proof of my attack to their homelands. You don't want these... hoomons to think you were involved, do you?"

The lead troll laughed darkly. "Hey, mon, we be de skullsplitter tribe, dey never see us commin... You doh, you be leadin the thick greenies, or dose blue freaks?"

I chuckle. "I lead the blue freaks. The thick greenies are our enemies, and both of our people come from the sea of stars. I'd like to apologize, but the greenies overrun the dark swamp to the east across the mountains, and are going to expand in all direction soon. I needed supplies, and felt you might like to know before they're at your doorstep."

The trolls look at each other and half of them dissapear back into the thick jungle foliage. The rest gain shadows of beasts standing behind them. "Ye be handin out warnings huh? Dat mean you be attackin de Gurubi next? Dat may be som-in ya be findin difficult, mon."

Gotta love the intimidation tactics. That'd make these guys shadowhunters, i guess. I'll need to...acquire one or two. "I suppose that depends on the results of this meeting." I bluffed. "Do your people listen to words of warming, or do you act only when an axe is splitting your friends skull? The thick greenies, orcs they call themselves, prefer skullsplitting, I prefer...sending a message."

"HA! Talk be cheap, mon! De Hoomons like to talk. Dey talk too much. Den dey stab you in de back." The party leader challenged.

I slammed the butt of Mar'gok's staff into the ground, quickly weaving a spell notation to convert arcane to ice and covered the area in a field of icey spears, imprisoning the trolls in a cage of sharp points, before rewiring the elementals to become tentacles weaving through the shafts, and caressing the shadow hunters necks. "Would you prefer if i stabbed you in the heart? While we were on more familiar ground?"

Two can play the intimidation game, but this was the tricky part. I had to get the five of them to bow, without killing them and inciting trolls to blood feud.

Sadly we weren't quite there yet, as the one casting a shadow of a bat screamed, shattering the parties icy prison. The one casting the tiger shadow roared with her, leaping at me, and battle was joined.


	12. Chapter 12

As the troll supporting the shadow of Shirvallah the Tiger god fell on me, I met his charge with a Cone of Cold and layered it with the arcane spell, Slow. Instead of falling on my face, axe first, he landed in front of me, arms covered in ice. That _may_ have been a mistake on my part, as there was a flash of shadowed gold from Shirvallah and with a roar of defiance, he promptly shattered the ice across the side of my jaw. Point to him. The attack staggered me and as he comes in from the reverse strike with his other iced limb I direct one of the water elementals to englobe him. It does so, wrapping him up like a boa constrictor before smoothing out into a water droplet. He moves to continue to attack anyway, slowed by [chilled] [slowed] and [bound], but I no longer have time to focus on him as the next shadowhunter is inbound.

One supporting the shadow of a Raptor, Gonk I'm pretty sure, gives me the middle finger with one hand, and raises his feathered spear with the other, forest green and brilliant teal skitter over the blade and roots surge out of the ground to to wrap me up and seek to disarm me. Growling, I set the elemental holding tiger troll to float above the earth, removing his ability to push forward and trigger ice armor. The shell of frozen energy flows across my body, flash freezing the green roots and with a heave, they shatter into chunks. Keeping up the charade is getting...complicated.

Then my world explodes into pain, as white hot fire lances through my back. I've been stabbed in the kidney, and that kind of pain carries an entirely different sort of shock than spiritual pain from magic. In particular, it makes me unable to concentrate enough to perform magic. The line of agony blooming cross my throat almost goes unnoticed beside the hell blistering out from my side. Ice blossoms out from my wounds to cover my body and entrap the trollish rogue, as I trigger a prepared [Ice Block] spell and moan at the relieving numbness. Saved by the proverbial bell, I use the momentary respite to build another more complicated working and burn a quarter of my mana winding time back 6 seconds with a [Temporal Shield]. Hir'eek's chapmion screams again, shattering my frigid bolt hole and the fight resumes. One of the free elementals is reprogrammed to wrap the Bathekk's paladin up like a christmas present, and immediately, the next troll is in my face.

This one has the shadow of a...crocodile? No, not with those ridges... its a basa... and the world fades to greyscale. FUCK!

I wake up, what seems to me moments later, stripped of my armor and weapons. My body is held up in the same stance as before, an inch thick shell of stone over everything but my eyes and I can see the five trolls each playing with my items. The last one, the one I hadn't fought, Hir'eek's apprentice, is smacking my staff against a log, yowling in frustration while Gonk's troll dances around in the air laughing as my jacket holds him aloft. Tiger-troll is bench pressing the gate while wearing my belt and panther-girl is cussing out the rest of them as she shakes my pants in her fist.

Idiots. Don't you know you're supposed to kill the boss before you loot him?

Or hell, maybe they did, as the almost complete lack of mana and my burning tattoos allow me to connect the series of events together. Well, they think i'm dead. Or perhaps ridiculously hard to kill, given I'm still imprisoned. breathing out through my nose, I close my eyes and slip into meditation. I have to recover my mana, fast, and that means evocation from a ley line. Following the training from [Mage] and [Powerful] I open my 'inner eye' and expand my senses. Raw mana permeates the world, but it's wispy, faint. The different colored zones quickly draw a 3D map in my mind and living beings stick out starkly against the background mana of the earth, air and water. There's a fair mount of mana left over from the six of us duking it out, but not enough for me to completely recover unless I draw on the trolls themselves, and that would both give them a chance to resist and alert them to what I was doing. Casting all of that aside, I expand my search further.

The closest ley line is 30 miles away, about half a mile beneath the ruins of an old troll city, and probably the reason it was built there. Reaching out with a tendril of my own mana, recovered during my search, I plug into the stream, like a transistor directing a much larger current. It surges across the distance, crashing into me with the force of a hurricane, instantly forming the iconic blue whirlwind around my form. The trolls immediately take notice and begin shouting in incomprehensible Zandali. As the mana hits my body, my tattoos begin to burn with the feeling of a long workout and with a heave and roar, I explode out of the Basalisk's curse of stone.

The five trolls stare at me, dumbfounded, not having expected me to survive several of their attacks, letalone all of them. The lone female troll may have been staring a bit lower, but I don't give time to consider that or allow them to recover. [Arcane Explosion] [Blast Wave] and [Frost Nova] explode out from me as I shed excess power from my [Evocation] and cut the connection before it starts to hurt, catching all of the trolls off guard. I use that time to draw the leftover magic from the fight together to create a howling blizzard centered on me. As the open area between the jungle outside and the damaged gates of Fort McConnell quickly vanish beneath a wall of white, I reach out for the binding on Mar'Gok's staff and yank it out of the Hir'eek shadowhunters hands.

As it slaps into my hands, I begin drawing power for dozens of water elementals and slam the butt of my staff into the earth, directing the entire blizzard to form ice blocks around the five trolls. When the storm clears, each of them have five elementals on them, ready with blades, streams, whips and and bubbles of water, ready to strike if they made a move. "How about we try this again?"

"Wad chu tink you kin do, mon?" the druid asked, scoffing, "We keel you twice! We take yo tings. We fight again, we keel you one mo time. Don't chu be tired ah dis?"

My eyes narrow in rage, and with a thought the lot of them are swarmed by the elementals. Large bubbles of water they are desperately trying to swim out of to no effect encapsulate the group and I quickly strip my captives of their armor and weapons. Hey, Turnabout is fair play, right? Restoring my own gear to it's proper place, I watch in amazement as the shadow hunter of Hir'eek is causing her bubble to flex and vibrate as though it were one massive stutter-glitch. All of the other trolls have given up on getting out of their predicament, save for the basalisk dude, who's turned his bubble to ice, but Hir'eeks girl is quickly running out of air.

With a snap, her prison collapses and she's instead held up hentai-tentacles style, just... no penetrations.

Yet.

"Are you done?" I ask.

She stops screaming and breathes in heavily, "Y-yah mon. Ya no gonna keel meh?"

I briefly make sure Arcane Language is translating our words to the trolls still in the bubbles and shrug. "Probably not... it only takes one to deliver a message."

The others immediately start struggling again, and the female troll sneers at them. "Pa'aku, de won wit de mask, he be da chiefs first son. Led de oddas drown, but yeh message be forgotten in favor ah vengeance eef he be dead."

I blink slowly, considering. It's not as if I'm shy about killing trolls, but I hadn't actually intended to before the fight. Even now, it's still just intimidation tactics. "No one will miss the others then?"

"Zuul an Pa'aku be friends," she shrugs "An Jebi be Zuul's mate, but Ged'wa es just an orphan out to prove emself. Pa'aku tink Jebi be bad for hiim friend an Zuul, he tink Ged'wa chose Shirvallah to get close to Jebi."

I hold up my hand stopping her. "No, I don't care. Unless Pa'aku is going to start a blood fued for me killing his friends, I don't need to know the politics."

Her mouths works silently for a moment or two before grimacing. Whatever, I'm done with this. Orienting on the troll city whose ley line I tapped earlier, I apply slow fall enchantments to the five of them and build up force constructs to launch them like artillery at the...probable ruins.

"Alright, listen up you lot!" I bark, upping the magic in the [Arcane language] spell. "The Orcs are coming. They've currently made camp in the Black Morass and are beginning to expand north! But soon, the Bleeding Hollow Clan, Bone Chewer Clan and Laughing Skull clan will come for Stranglethorn Vale. They will see your lands as familiar, and your people as sport. If you see any of MY people with them, known that they are war slaves and will flee or bow should you kill the orcs. Before you think allying yourself with the orcs is a good idea and will soothe your humiliation against me, know this. The orcs will decimate humanity if left alone, and will happily ally with you and help you if you let them, but in return, they will demand you let them eat your gods, and if they learn of your gods while fighting you, will hunt you instead. This had already happened in the world before. Once a lush jungle like this one, with many powerful gods, they slew them and consumed the life of the land itself in their thirst for conquest against my people, and against the Draenei who crew my skyship. Once proud sprawling nations, there are fewer of us left even that what I saw in your ruined cities. Be wary, and strike without warning or remorse."

Then I trigger the spells and the five of them sail over the horizon, shedding water like commit trails and screaming bloody murder.

Shaking my head, I turn and stumble away. My injuries are gone with the time-spell, as is the physical pain, but the psychosomatic injuries still smart. I briefly consider removing the feather-light charms on the trolls and letting them splatter across the walls of the town, but that'd be countrer productive. I'll have to be satisfied with the terror they're feeling now and hope they dont have too much fun bouncing around like moon men before it wears off.

Muttering to myself, turn around to head back to my ship. The Thurmites should be about done stripping the fort down by now, and the 'survivors' should be waking up too. Stumping back through camp, and looking around, my eyes fall across something... bizarre.

Gortag and Gorka are off to one side of the camp... _trading_ _with a trio of velociraptors?_ I blink, almost dumbfounded for a few moments shake my head and look again, but the image doesn't go away. Approaching slowly, so as not to disrupt the meeting, I listen and watch intently. The Velociraptors are wearing bands of leather tied off with bones, beads, claws and teeth, feathers and the occasional bit of gold or gems. These bands are around their upper arms, lower legs and act as necklaces. They purr, bark, chitter and... well,.. _gonk..._ while waving their small arms around, and Gortag and Gorka respond in kind, in their guttural orcish language.

As I watch, Garrosh runs in with another crate, which if it's like the other open crates, is probably filled with smoked meats, and on the other side, a stream of raptors rush in and out of the broken wall, adding rapidly to a pile of herbs behind the three mature dinosaurs.

...Right. The raptors are intelligent. Of course they are. Like Murlocks their nests usually have stick and straw houses, so why not?

As Garrosh rushed off again, I went after him, casting [Blink] and [Arcane language]. "Hey, kid."

"Oh, hey boss. Mind helping me with the larder? It's good exercise, and if you get fat like the other ogres you'll lose the goat-girls!"

I glower at teenager. "Stringy orc brat isn't fattening. Think I should switch my diet too?" He sticks his tongue out and hops up the steps of one of the few buildings to remain intact. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you what Gortag was trading for."

"Oh, that's simple enough." He pull out a purple fern leaf and tosses it at me as he starts opening crates. "When you went about collecting provisions back home, you didn't get any reagents, so Gorka thought we could ask the locals. This one's for you. Gortag said to give it to you when you asked. It's called Dreamfoil. It'll be part of your shaman training."

I took it curiously. It's used in alchemy for int, wis, mana and a few other high level vanilla potions. I wonder how it can be used for shaman training, but I assume I'll find out soon enough. "Right. Tell him to pack it in, the trolls have been warned and the Draenai will be done with the armory soon."

"Got it." he grunts, hefting another crate and coming towards the door. With a gesture, I place a 2 minute feather light charm on his box, and turn away. "Oh! Thanks old man! Say, what are we stealing next?"

I pause on my way down the steps and wait for him. "Well, we've got the metal, now we need the elements. And for the moment... that ties into my plans for the trolls."

With that, I walked off.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

In the end, the raid retrieved 53 suits of plate armor weighing roughly 300 pounds each, 78 sets of chain mail weighing about 120 pounds, 200 swords weighing in at 10 pounds for a short sword and 15 for a long, 60 flintlock muskets though the draenai forgot to pack the ammo, 8 forges, 37 leather rolls of blacksmiths equipment, ~900 iron bars 5 pounds each and enough provisions to extend our mission another 4 months. As far as I'm concerned it was a great haul, but by all reports, there were enough armor racks for 900 soldiers in the base, and that was just the areas they checked. I'm honestly not sure how to take that. Under normal circumstances a kingdom this size will have maybe 500 knights (all of them nobles, mostly petty), 3000 men at arms (dedicated members of the nobles houses) and the rest of the soldiery would be drawn from the peasantry. If they were given armor at all, it would be leather or layered gamberson. Here we have a case of 900 soldiers in a minimum of chainmail being more or less thrown away on a hinterlands post to essentially tell barbarians "fuck you".

But there weren't nearly that many soldiers when I was storming the port and driving everyone off into the boats, and their numbers were at least a third Goblins. So... does Stormwind have a vast professional soldiery with which they can resist the orcs? That would explain why it took them two years to take Stormwind, where it only took them a year to swallow Khazmodan and ravage the whole of Lorderan's 7 kingdoms. Or does Stormwind simply have enough metal laying around that the civilians can casually afford their own arms and armor? I'd say that wouldn't be allowed, or even possible, but this **IS** a words and sorcery fantasy land with dozens of highly aggressive races and a frontier nation. Stormwinds own culture, only ever talked about in summary, could indeed be the in universe origin of the adventurer swarm.

In either case, I set the ship to sail for the I'lalai at the bottom of the vile reef and spend the rest of the day with Mennu and Naal'ga in the hold space he's using as a crystal workshop. Mennu and Naal'ga are busy enchanting the varying forges to hold steady at different temperatures, ones I can only assume are good for melting different types of metal, when I enter the room.

"How are my cannon coming along?"

The former potential broken slave-master and steam-smith grunts and shrugs his shoulders, not even pausing it what looks to be a laser etching of one of the forges. "I've got some prototypes. Nothing up to the level of the Crystalshot Longrifle, but with enough power behind it..."

"Power we have aplenty." I remark, dryly.

"Well, anyway, we can fire just about anything for a few thousand rounds before I'll need to replace what I got now. Or you can fire [Arcane Missiles]. I haven't made one that can do both though. Still working on that."

I grin broadly. "Do the missiles scale up with the power input? And how many shots do we get?"

Mennu turns around and grimaces at me, but Naal'ga pipes in, preempting his bosses ire. "Overcharge the missiles as far as you want, but like the scatt cannon, you'll be taking a hit to the crystals durability. You can fire a pretty good stream of missiles endlessly though if you just let it run normally. A Five hundred newtons of force per missile, but the guidance scripts aren't working properly."

I nod slowly. 500 newtons isn't bad, depending on how concentrated it is. Your average low velocity bullet is 600 newtons for example; 1200 for a high velocity round. A boxer's hook averages 1000, with some crazy ones getting up to 5000. While those can break bone and pulp meat, they aren't going to put down an orc without dozens of hits to the same part of the head or chest. Too much surface area. "Can you focus the missiles impact to that of an arrowhead? And what's wrong with the guidance?"

Mennu grunts and turns back to the forge. "A normal [Arcane Missile] will follow the target no matter how good they are at dodging. Its essentially a curse that takes a little while to get there. The Crystalshots runes dont do that, instead the missiles follow the aim of the rifle. That's fine if you've only one target, but is hell if you have more."

I snort. "Sounds fine to me. 500 newtons isn't going to kill most things unless you focus it into a fine point or edge, being able to guide multiple shots into the same strike zone is probably the best way to use it."

Mennu huffs again. "Yeah, that's fine in close urban combat or at the back of an army, but for ship combat the distances are too great for that to be effective. You'd need to overcharge every shot, or have dozens of them mounted all up and down the ship. And I still haven't gotten around to adding an [Arcane Intelligence], so they'll have to be crewed individually by a gunner, cutting our manpower rather than increasing it."

I shrug. "Unless you know their hidden depths, most of the crew don't count as combat troops. The six who came to the temple with us are about it. The others can fight, but they're either untrained, too slow, too weak or lack the bravery to be on the front lines." I pause. "No offense to your friends, Naal."

He shrugs. "We live long enough most of us are accomplished archmagi, priests, warriors, artisans, farmers and politicians all at once, but that doesn't mean we've the temperament to gain, or have recent, experience in any of them. The incident you speak of also occurred when many of us were sick, starved and beaten, you may find a different reaction, should you ask again now. Some mere villagers remained, determined to never be helpless again, but most of them left when you first opened the portal to Tel'redor. Those who remain..."

"I'll keep that in mind" I reply thoughtfully, offering a small nod in mild gratitude at his calm rebuttal. "Even so, some of them would probably gain combat effectiveness as gunners. And esteem as a consequence." A thought strikes me and I pause. "Do you think you could add a tractor beam to the guns?"

"A what?" Mennu asks, not even looking up this time.

"A spell that pulls things towards the caster." I explain. "Like an alternate setting to the guns. Once you use the missiles to fill it full of holes, you use the second spell to retrieve it."

Mennu grunts. "Would be easier to fire a [Blink] spell and have them teleport beside the gun."

A wide shark-like grin slowly creeps across my face. "If you did that, where would the teleported figure end up?"

Something about my voice must have scared Mennu because he stiffened, before putting down his enchanting rod and turning to look at me. "Usually right beside the gun in some manner. Its typically put on the handle of a knife so that the blade with either summon the thrower, return the blade to the users hand or cross the distance and maybe obstacles in an instant. Why, what do you have in mind?"

My grin widened even more.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The next day starts out slow. Hovering over the vast expanse of the Stranglethorn bay, a rainbow of fish playing across the Vile Reef below us, my Thurmites spend the day fishing, while Naal'ga, Mennu and their assistants work on implementing my planned ship armaments. As they work, I collect the scrapped chips of violet stone and reforge them into rings. Adding my personal 'slaves' Mennu and Samaara, my 'orc captives' Gortag, Gorka and Garrosh, the Thurmite volunteers, and myself, there are 76 of us now on board, and frankly, that's alot of people to equip. Right now the majority of them are still wearing rags they had on when I rescued them from the orcs. A few of them, mostly the women, managed to find clothes that would fit them among the shops and barracks of Fort McConnell, and my personal team still have their crystal armor, but that leaves me (and them) with alot of work still to do.

Thankfully, Stranglethorn is sunny, balmy and blessed by nothing harsher then cool breezes and stinging insects.

On my ship at least.

Logic would state that, if I wasn't expecting my sworn legion to fend for themselves like some asshole bandit lord, I would be working to equip them with all due haste with at least metal and crystal armor, right? What else was the point of the raid on the fort after all? Nope! I'm working instead on Rings. Power Rings, to be specific. And in this case, I would be providing the crew with [Ring of Endless Breath]. See, I'm one of those asshole bosses I mentioned earlier. Just a bit. I've checked with K'ure and we're hovering directly above the former capital of the Gurubashi Empire, the temple city of I'lalai where the Witch Doctor Min'loth and the Gurubi Emperor Var'Gazul got squished flat by Nepluton for trying to summon a corrupted Hakkar. Now that we're here, I need them to go down there and help me pillage the troll city and use the Alter of the Deep to set up a deal with the Tidehunter himself.

In an ideal situation, Gortag will get a breakthrough in his communion with this worlds elements, and I'll get the Tidestone to first manipulate and then hand off to the current generation of trolls. My Draenai will get some valuable experience fighting sea creatures and performing dwarven archeology and at least the armor and weapons situation will be dealt with, though perhaps not regular clothing.

More likely than not, though, something will go... wrong. Chances are, the Naga have already picked the ruins clean over the last 1700 years. There's also a possibility of the Naga and Giligoblins being here in force, just because Azeroth wants to fuck with me. Or the dragons, cause [Enemy of the Bronze]. Who knows if K'ure's shielding me goes that far. I already have my suspicions about the earlier fight with the shadow hunters.

Regardless of my rampant paranoia though, the day passed peacefully. My Draenai drew in fish, which they prepared and tested with gusto, and a competition for who could reel in the biggest catch even ensued. Ring after ring formed beneath my fingers and magic, and it wasn't long before the Thurmite crewmen were in the water. Most of them sucked at swimming, but no chance of drowning, they learned quickly enough, the only conflict being between them and the fishing enthusiasts who swore the swimmers were driving away the fish.

Finally, as the sun was setting, I was on the last two rings, mine and Naal'suul's. The quiet rogue waited patiently for me to finish, before appearing to summon Gorka and Samaara, the three girls practically dragging me through one of the new hatches for the gunners and into the water below.

I sent a mirror image up to Mennu and Naal'ga, telling them to take a break and myself relented. The water was warm, the sky golden, and perhaps surprisingly, the swimming crowd of draenai had indeed scared off all the fish, rather than attracting the predators which crowded the game world. Some enterprising draenai had braved the strangle-kelp to retrieve an air-bladder about the size of my head and were using it as a beach ball. Shaking my head and laughing, I relaxed and joined in.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

At some point while I wasn't watching, Kiel'ndia had set up a scrying team to keep track of the retreating alliance and goblin ships. The goblins of booty bay arrived at their ramshackle port town first. With their gas powered paddle wheel ships, it was really a foregone conclusion, but two of the boats blew up, two days ago during our first day on the reef, and another yesterday when one of the damaged ships ran afoul of a patrol of Naga and refused to pay tribute. Apparently giligoblins don't breed and so they have to be made from normal goblins, probably by some HPLovecraft type means the eel-elves subject them to down in Nazjatar. I'm probably happier not knowing.

The Alliance ships have only just rounded the deadmines lighthouse despite a group of magi keeping their sails full and should make it to port in Stormwind before the end of the week, assuming the wizards stamina holds out. Why they aren't setting up portals on the ship I can only guess, but the steady 40 knots isn't anything to sniff at in a medieval vessel. It might have taken them even longer, but apparently they saw my ship flying over the reef and thought we were chasing them, which lit a fire under their asses. Probably not the best thing for my reputation, but needs must, and I did pick [Target of the Alliance], so even if I weren't a jackass I'd have probably gotten that some time.

My own personal quest on the reef on the other hand has turned out to be... quite boring. Turns out, Troll magic is pretty durable stuff. The entire ruins is covered in magical rubble filled with a jumble of half formed spells that, for some god-forsaken reason, have neither faded nor exploded after all this time. What's left in tact is mostly jewelry, and BOY are the trolls fond of their jewelry. Armbands of copper, gold, silver, platinum, jade and bone, make a pile about waist high on my deck. Rings of the same, bearing every type of gem you can think of make another. Head dresses of stone carved with geometric swirls that have no arcane meaning, and masks of various minerals, often torn off or caved in by what looks like a hammer form a third. It may be related to the cities nature as a temple complex, or maybe because they're stupid trolls, but there don't seem to be any chest or leg armor of note down there.

None of the Draenai can make heads or tails of the enchantments on their either, without putting the damn things on, other than a good third of them are cursed, and hitting one of the hats which took it upon it's own volition to start flying around shooting eye-beams at my grave robbers shed just about all attacks save for an exorcism cast by Bali'ir which completely disenchanted the thing. I suppose the Nexus shard I got out of the deal was worth it though. But now I'm fighting with myself whether to give it to the trolls or disenchant it all for materials?

Aside from that, my troops got a bit of combat experience out of the deal. Murlocks swarm through the ruins like schools of fish do on the reefs. And if you think a murlock swarm is a pain in the ass on land as a player, they're terrifying in the water. At least until you learn** they're** _equally_ terrified of the Holy Light. Chalk one up for servants of N'Zoth and Innmouth Deep Ones references. Eventually though, the section of the city around the grand ziggurat is cleared (though there are many city blocks still to go) and I feel comfortable using the ominously glowing Alter of the Tides at it's zenith.

"Alright," I tell the crew, rubbing my hands together. "Time to tell you all the real reason we're here. As much fun and relaxation as has been had by all, the troll city below is sort of like the orcs Throne of the elements. I've confirmed this with K'ure" I gesture to the Naaru, who hums "and we've confirmed that with it we can summon a spirit from the court of Nepluton the Tidehunter. Granted, getting in contact with Nepluton can wait, as the orcs won't be using him like they did the furies at embari village, but he's the calmest and most reasonable of the four and if I can convince him to give me the Tidestone, that'll make us champions of the Gurubashi trolls, allowing us to rally them against the fel horde..." I waited while the cheer interrupting my speech died down and then turned slightly to placate my orcs "and make a safe haven for those orcs who are redeemable and would happily abandon Gul'dan."

_Bringing the elements into balance is also a crucial step to saving this world from the Void. This is the chief purpose of the Army of Light, and why I allowed myself to be altered by the Runemaster._ K'ure adds absently, and I stiffen, resisting the urge to glare him into oblivion. **Let** me? Like hell.

I breathe out through my nose, masterfully concealing my irritation and continue. "Jemal, Hibibi, Kailu and Mennu, I'd like you to man the new gun emplacements on the lower hull and be ready to lay down the hurt and extract us, should things deteriorate. Everybody has their rings or water breathing? Away team is suited up? Good, lets' go."

With that, I did a backwards dive off the railing and into the water. It wasn't that far of a jump, barely 70 feet, and most of that deckspace as we're practically hovering over the tips of the waves. The water is cold though, as I'd chosen to cut todays fun short due to a storm coming in. The water is dark, but Samaara, Bali'ir, Kali'ir, Kiel'ndia and K'ure quickly take care of that, igniting a golden radiance that drove away both the murk and the murk-dwellers.

_Like cockroaches_, I thought darkly.

Gortag and Gorka catch up quickly, and a disturbed current tickling my back alerts me to Naal'suul's presence. I smile and swim on. Whumps from above alert to the arrival of 24 other Draenai joining us in the water. Over the course of the last 3 days I've crafted various crystal armor pieces for them, but for the most part, they're clothed in relatively crude clothing made from cloth found in Fort McConnell. A few of the 'brave civilians' are tailors and surprisingly they don't expect me to do everything for the crew. Still, I plan to search for silk soon. Very magically conductive, silk.

Like a rain of stars, the group descends up on the temple and take spots on the temple mount. The blue glowing alter is only 150 feet below the surface, which makes it much easier to move than in the rest of the city or reef floor and I turn to Gortag.

"_You're ready?_" I ask him. My mouth only issues bubbles and the sounds are wildly distorted under the water, but [Arcane Language] pulls through, as it has for the last 4 days, and he nods, sticking several different herbs in his mouth and chewing. The only one I recognize is the dreamfoil. When he's done, he moves to stand in the dark blue field, and begins laying out his tools.

Then he shudders. "_There is a darkness here. A foul residue. Like whispers and blood._"

I nod. "_We expected this, Nepluton sunk the city because they were trying to summon a corrupted Hakkar._" I turn to the humming rainbow behind me, "_K'ure, Cleanse the shrine? And Gortag, for good measure, The Nightmare is insidious._"

"_Of course, runemaster. You should have asked first._" The Naaru lit up like a sun, but in three places rather than one. It's core, where I had placed the spirit shards, the lower left leg attuned to death, and the black eye. Streamers of red-black energy streamed out of the alter and screamed before splitting into three streams and sinking into the god-crystal.

The thickest of the streams was death.

When he was done, the sheets of blue light wafting around the alter like an arurora was a much brighter more vibrant blue than before. K'ure then drifted off to the side to siphon Light from the glowing guards and I turned back to Gortag. "_How about now?_"

He grunts and continues laying out his tools. Gorka answers me instead, as seems to be their pattern. "_I can hear the elements of this place. It's much clearer than before. Like when I'm in a good meditative fugue. Father should have no problems calling upon a powerful spirit._"

I nod, and Gortag raises his hands as if in prayer. "_Element of water, origin of life. Your soothing flows wash over me and through me, wearing smooth the rough edges. This humble servant entreats you to come forth and be known. Currents of the deep, step forth._"

A pulse radiates out from the alter and the surface of the bay seems to calm, stilling to a mirrors surface for a moment. Then the water begins to move again. The whole body of water begins to rotate slowly clockwise and the surface depresses down towards us. As that happens, the water around the periphery rises. And rises. And **rises.** In the space of a minute, the entire courtyard surrounding the base of the Ziggurat is dry and a dome of swirling water has swallowed both my strike force and my flying ship.

To no ones surprise, the gunners on the lower hull panic and begin evacuating people by blink-strike, one after another. They're almost done with the poorer equiped 24 volunteer soldiers when a massive 300 foot tall figure strides out of the waves like a titan of legend.

I turn to Gortag and hiss "You summoned fucking Nepluton?!" Gortag himself though was unable to respond, water still swirling over his form, eyes closed and muttering. I tried to touch him, but the water was as hard as concrete and brushed against my palm like a sandblaster. There would be no getting to him, not while the GOD of water was here.

As usual, it was up to me.

Tightening my grip on the Great-staff of the Grand Imperator, capped with Eye of the Storm, I took comfort in the artifacts ability to command a comparative level of power to the great being before me. So long as he didn't rip the water out of my body with a glare before I shielded, this was survivable. If I were one to pray though, this would be when I started asking deities it wouldn't come to that.

"Tidehunter!" I call out, my voice amplified by a simple cantrip. "You honor us with your presence."

The titanic elemental god turns it's gaze on me and I feel the magical over-pressure so popular in fantasy press down on me. With a flick of my fingers, the staff takes the weight, shielding me from the gods interest. "_**It is rare the corruption of the ancient ones fades. This alter has been dedicated to me and my champion for 7000 years.**_" He turns his attention back on Gortag, silent for several minutes. Further blink-strikes snap up the rest of the auxiliaries and even some of my own team, but they reappear moments later, taking up guard positions. "_**The shaman's heart speaks well of you, planeswalker, but insists your intentions are as murky as Ny'alotha. Speak, interloper.**_"

"I was hoping you would grant me" I look over to Gortag "or my champion use of the Tidestone. The emerald flames of chaos return to this world and I need the authority it would grant me to unite the Trolls against their pawns. I also want access to the Elemental Plane of Water and the assistance of some of your lesser children. In exchange, I am willing to cleanse more water shrines of the Ancient Ones corruption and free you from their chains, should such influence remain." I gesture to K'ure.

The giant frowned, and spears of ice the size of my ship began to form in random places around the bubble, but melted back into the waves after a short period. The giant lizard man reaches up to the amulet on his chest and plucks one of the smaller white stones out of it's setting. "_**This is the Tidestone of the Gurubashi. It is a conduit to my power, but do not mistake that for imagining you can use it to influence me. Use your artifact to cleanse the darkness within and remove the curse. If I am satisfied, I will grant you a quest. Thus shall be the nature of our relationship.**_"

Not... what I'd hoped for... but I suppose it's a start. Farming rep for Lord Hydraxus to attune to the molten core was far FAR more tedious. I take the stone in a telekinetic grip, and examine it, to see if I could break the curse myself, with nether-light forging or the expertise i had been granted by being a [Powerful][Mage]. I could disenchant it, gaining a hell of a whopping Void Shard, but that would irrevocably damage the stone, essentially failing my task. I could pull the spell apart, teasing out one strand after another, if I pulled on the Draenai's light to paralyze the living spell but that would take me four sleepless days of nonstop casting. Or, I could hand it to K'ure and he would suck the thing out in 5 seconds and leave only minimal damage.

I do so, and the process completes without incident. Nepluton on the other hand looks at the pair of us, stunned speachless the ever turning sphere of water stilling completely. ...Until K'ure hums a short little ditty reminiscent of "flight of the bumble bees" [Arcane Language] translates only as a garbled pile of words. Nepluton _laughs._ Whatever the Naaru said to him, he laughs and laughs, a deep belly roar for several long seconds.

"_**The greediest mortal the Elemental Plane of Light has ever met, and you intended to continue cleansing my shrines even were I to give you NOTHING?**_"

I hold back a glower at K'ure and grin sheepishly at the water god. "They're rather anti-social creatures. Just let me introduce the stupid violin to a goblin, that'll set it straight."_ You have gained 20K rep with Nepluton_ I tell myself sarcastically in the back of my mind.

"_**Hmm... Our bargain has not changed. But the first quest is completed, so a reward is owed.**_" He releases Gortag and reaches out into the distance. The water holding him seizes the Tidestone and dozens of blue pearls the size of a human fist fly out of the deep. Blue power arc between the pearls and the milky white stone and they form into a Bhuddish Prayer Bead necklace around the orcs neck.

"And my next quest, great Nepluton?" I ask, cautious.

He smiles cruelly. "_**I seem to have an infestation in one of my temples**_." He intones, as a literal army of murlocks begin frog-stepping their way out of the surf. "_**Cleanse it for me.**_"

The murlocks shake themselves off and raise spears. "MURURURUGGLLERER!" They scream as a battle cry.

"And what do I get?" I roar back at him, whipping my staff around like a whip and sending a giant blastwave of white fire down the temples slopes.

"_**I believe you were interested in the shadowhunters.**_" He replies, amused, conjuring five balls of water, each with a different troll in them. "**_I happen to have one such team in my employ._**" Each of the trolls had a different shadow. Graal, Shark Loa of the Deep. Torga, Turtle Loa of travel, healing and protection. Dambala, Loa of sea serpents and patron of the Darkspear trolls. Mahamba, the Crocalisk Loa. Ranka, the Hydra Loa, guardian of Zul'Gurub.

After that, I have no space to think, under the swarm of Murlocks and a teleport lock.


	13. Chapter 13

Individually, Murlocs are tricky to kill. Their bodies are like rubber, their bones are flexible cartilage and their brains are simple enough that you could hammer on them for several minutes with a mace and unless you crushed them flat they'd probably just shake it off until the bruising became internal bleeding. This constitution comes their ability to live just as happily in the crushing depths of the Abyssal Maw of shallow rivers and ponds of the land where the other races know them best. Killing them work fire or lightning can work, after a while, but mostly because it causes their skin to crisp off and peel away, leading to massive bleeding, not the usual shock damage to nearby organs. Probably related to their tendency to set up nests in Najatar near volcanic vents and in the maze of glacial capillaries north of icecrown.

What they **are** vulnerable to however, is blades. That rubbery flesh parts even easier than that of mammals, making spearing a murloc clean through to his buddies behind him or cleaving it in half is something even a young squire can do without too much training, where the same trainee would have trouble chopping off a mans head with less than a dozen blows. Even so, Murlocs die just as well to overkill as any other cockroach type vermin and with Eye of the Storm, I expect I have plenty of kill.

Not that I don't desperately want to gank a certain elemental god for asking.

My first couple of sweeps with blastwaves did what they were supposed to, driving back the hordes and sweeping their crisped bodies down the sides of the temple. About a third of them died before fishmen at the edges of the clear area, wearing troll bangles and carrying staves rather than spears joined the cry, covering the swarm in water shields and healing those who hadn't died immediately. Another sweep of blastwaves proved wholly ineffectual as though the water shields steamed and boiled, the frogs under them felt right at home.

My next retaliation was a massive frost nova, built up and released moments before the fish engaged with my Draenai. The attack ripples out, washing over the entire infestation, Nepluton himself, and even sent spears of ice riding up the walls of water surrounding the temple. The elemental god frowned at me, bur radiated amusement nonetheless. The ice shattered along the base of the bubble in multiple places and further hordes began streaming through, shattering their fellows icy prisons, freeing them none the worse for wear.

Growling in frustration, berating myself for having obviously forgotten the patch notes without [Guided by Arcane] to back me up, I sent out a wave of force to shatter the murlocs myself. They died in large numbers as shards of ice from their former prisons impaled vital areas, but about half of them survived, free, but somewhat slowed by the experience. Their reinforcements bounced and tumbled like rubber balls, but picked themselves up in short order, joining their chilled brethren and **even more** reinforcements as they poured into the submerged city.

Fuck... this is why we didn't bother trying to clear out the entire place before meeting Nepluton. The temple swarm was irritating enough on it's own without having the entire reef bear down on us.

All the while, from above my ship rained down fire upon the army. Arcane missiles punched through monster after monster, mowing them down like a quartet of machine guns, but the modifications I'd asked for worked somewhat against us in this case. Small holes riddle the frog/fish-men but with the exceptions of hits to the vital organs there's little more effect than normal missiles hitting them like hammers. Further fire from my gathered crew rained down from the rails, a mix of fire, ice, force and holy light. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the Holy Light worked the best as the white fires of a priests rebuke.

Despite this fire power, _they kept coming.  
_  
I tried plugging the holes, but more opened, and they were opening faster than I was closing them. I considered another explosion of cold, but I suspect Nepluton may have had something to do with the issue, and so left it alone in frustration. Cheek twitching in irritation I changed tactics again. The massive die off of enemies due to the ice spears when I shattered the first imprisoning frost nova gave me an idea. Stopping my frantic movements atop the pyramid I closed my eyes and focused, spawning dozens of translucent violet blades of force directed by the most basic of arcane intelligence. It has my rather laughable knowledge of swordplay and a grudge against murlocs, and that's about it. But honestly, does it need more? As a planar field build around the concept of severing force there's not much that will block it.

My spell completed, I sent them to their grisly work. And not a moment too soon, as it turned out. In the almost a minute I'd spent futilely trying to plug holes and then summoning and modifying the arcane familiars, the murlocs had swarmed those of my party who'd stayed with me. Samaara, Kiel and the paladins are holding their own, each surrounded by a pile of quickly ashing corpses, but as I watch, Naal'suul is extracted by a golden beam of light from the ship, freeing her from no less than ten murlocs biting her arms and legs and another climbing her stomach with a spear. She leaves behind a pile of her own, but it's clear she was in trouble and I was not nearly attentive enough.

As my arcane blades go to work, I scan the rest of my party. Gorka is surrounded by a spinning storm of ice chips and Gortag is calmly disemboweling one fishman, while a literal carpet of them scream and bleed anti-freeze blood over his water armor. Gorka looks worn out though, and gaps are appearing in her defense, as though she's running out of mana. I move over to her and offer my hand, a trio of [Dancing Blades] cutting down her personal foes. She looks at me confused, but takes the hand and I infuse her with my own mana. She gasps and flushes, but looks better for it.

"Thank you," she grunts. "I was beginning to worry."

Not knowing quite what to say to that, I smile grimly. "Think you can continue?"

"Yes," she makes a gesture and a tentacle of water lashes out to snake through the mouths and out the asses of a dozen fish monsters before freezing solid, spears of ice poking out from their insides. I masterfully hold back a look of horror at the manner of death and nod to her. "You don't need to hold back for us, Thurm." She adds as I turn back to the others. "Our patrons protect us."

I pause, half turned away. She's... not wrong. Illidan could lift an entire island from the depths only the Warglaives of Azzinoth and the Skull of Gul'dan as augmentations. I was limiting myself here, when I possessed the Eye of the Storm. Had I not done far more remarkable feats before I lost [Guided by Arcane]? I was thinking too small.

"Point taken." Closing my eyes, a spellform built in my head. A simple force construct, four walls expanding, 50 feet high. Opening my eyes, I unleash it, forming a barrier around the top of the temple. The flow of murlocs immediately cuts off, and my [Dancing Blades] and followers quickly dispatch the last of them. Then the four Draenai sag to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. Their armor is chipped and cracked, several of them are bleeding despite the light that's been radiating from beneath their skin for the last 10 minutes of combat, and all of them share a look of exhaustion. Kiel starts laughing vaguely hysterically and rolls over to support herself against Kali'ir's back.

I send the [Dancing Blades] still inside the barrier out to aid the other ones and walk over to offer Samaara my hand as I'd done for Gorka. She takes it without hesitation and as her wounds close, she surges forward, kissing me. Her actions are desperate, seeking, and I suspect Naal will not be the only one I need to simply comfort tonight. "You did well," I tell her as we break apart.

She looks at me searchingly as I continue summoning progressively more [Dancing Blades]. "The light provides, mine" she replies eventually. I nod and she turns around, leaning into me. It's a little harder, casting without the use of my hands, but I hold her anyway. I need the mental exercise without [Guided by Arcane] to take the major load for me.

As the Horde of murlocs finally begins to thin, the pyramid is covered with blood, and the courtyard of the great temple looks like a scene out of Diablo. I ignore it and begin channeling. Arcane power draws itself out of my ship and out of the ley lines below the city, linking to the Eye and then spreading out, infusing the stone. The effect moves out like a ripple in a pond painting everything in purple that shimmers like light beneath the waves. The effect spreads beyond the bubble Nepluton has created and the water god shifts uncomfortably under my gaze. Further and further the effect spreads, until I have the entire city under my sway.

Then I begin to lift.

The reef stirs and fish turn tail, fleeing as with one mind into the murk. Sand billows as the water shifts and we begin rising. The process takes several minutes, but shortly, the alter is close enough to my ship for my exhausted strike team to clamber aboard the gun emplacements on the lower hull. They don't, strangely, coming instead to stand by me, The paladins standing in front, Gorka and Kiel to either side. Naal rejoins us, as always I'm beginning to learn, at my back. Gortag, the old prat continues studying a murloc corpse, but he hasn't taken his prizes elsewhere, so I'll take that as as much support as he's willing to show publicly.

As for the rest of the city, I've left a foot of water running through the streets, but broken up the city layout so that the various tiers of trollish society are level with one another. Manipulating the stone, I heal the cracks and begin altering the stone beneath the city. The first thing I do, is form columns, fusing sand into glass pillars 5 foot thick every 41 feet spaced in perfect triangles and fused seamlessly to the ocean floor and city under-ceiling. Magical numbers, but also because glass is good for conducting magic. Low resistance, but no notable properties. Once that's done, the bottom of the city's foundation begins to bubble, shifting from shale to Pumice until I judge it could probably support it's own weight. Should any ass hole decide on a whim to start undermining my work.

"Your Temple is cleansed, Nepluton," I shout. "Quest completed."

"**And so it is!**" He laughs. "**And so it is! As promised, your reward!**" The five orbs holding the shadow hunters descend from a halo around the water gods head to burst upon my ships deck and a great wave of water sweeps through the city. "**You went above and beyond, however, so a favor is owed.**" The water washes away the Murlocs and the blood, leaving behind a mountain of gold in the troll fashion large enough to cause the temple foundations to crack under their sheer weight. I seize the stone and repair it, then recall my [Dancing Blades] and repurposed them into a different sort of [Arcane Familiar]. They begin gathering the gold and turning it into a stream headed for my ship. I'll probably need to build another extra-dimensional hold for all of it, but what's done is done, and it's one hell of a reward. Alot of time saved scavenging.

"_For the next quest,_" K'ure cuts in before I can speak "_the peers shall exchange essences._"

Nepluton looks troubled, but nods his head. "**The influence of the Ancient Horrors remains, but imprisoned as they are, I only need mind myself near Nazjatar. Take my chains, star spawn, but be wary not to impose them upon yourself.**"

The element of water. Mortal corruption tends towards tranquility and indecisiveness. Water flows with the path of least resistance, but once moving can become an unstoppable force. The former Naaru floats up to hover around the giants belt and Nepluton kneels down, till his forehead is level with the crystal violin. The pair of them begin to pulse with power and Nepluton rapidly becomes translucent, a being of pure water and magical Power. Spreading through his body, like gossamer veins from this distance but probably a foot thick at least, is a pulsing darkness. Almost immediatly, golden light begins shining off my deck. The Draenai have become well trained it seems. The light is drawn to the former Naaru like a black holes accretion disk and the darkness within The Tidehunter begins to writhe. Slowly, much much more slowly than any other time I've watched this process over the last month, the writhing void begins to slither its way out of K'ure's most recent victim.

The process takes _hours_ lasting until sundown, because of course it does, and I return to my ship to continue watching as first a late Lunch, and then dinner are brought out.

The five shadow hunters are silent throughout the entire event, watching the stream of gold en items with undisguised greed, but neither of us deign to introduce ourselves. Nepluton is being operated on, and until that is done, neither of us has much to say. He's their patron, and reward or not, if my artifact kills him, they're not going to take it quietly.

Finally, the last screaming strand of inky darkness is pulled out of the arch-elemental, and Nepluton re-solidifies. His skin is less reptilian and more... dolphin, I guess. The squid tentacles are gone, replaced by seaweed hair and _somehow_ he seems as if he's stronger than he was before the ritual started. A fair amount of writhing inky blackness is still hovering before K'ure, slowly being digested by the Netherlight forging process, but Nepluton holds up a hand to stop K'ure.

"**From the raging energies of the new universe the first ice was born. It occured when the void, jealous and hungry, struck out at the retreating arcane force, tainting it and cooling the magic into stillness. It is thus that water has always maintained a curious connection with the void, even as it is birthed solely from the Arcane**." He places a claw in the smokey black residue and then draws it across one of K'ure's lower, still purple legs. Blue power radiates off elemental, binding the two powers together with a purpose and goal. When he's done, a shimmering blue light suffuses and radiates off the former Naaru. "**May the tranquil power of water follow and sooth you for all your days. But be aware always that the stillest waters hold the darkest depths, and the coldest ice.**"

To the Tidehunter's side a fountain of water erupts into a humanoid form. Silent, it walks up to the ship and turns into a stream, splashing into the deck and then reforming. Taking my shape, it bows, before wandering off towards the prow. As I turn away from it to look back at the water god, I find he's vanished and the gigantic bubble encasing my ship is leaving with him.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The night is a long one. Naal and Sam both have nightmares, Naal about her capture and captivity by the orcs, and Sam about the invasion of Karabor and the death of her sister. Only this time, the orcs in the dreams are mixed with or replace by murlocs. It's nice that they trust me enough to be calmed by my presence and voice, a sign of our growing bond, but it makes for horrendous sleeping conditions. I consider for long moments skipping breakfast and just sleeping with the pair of them until lunch, but duty calls.

In this case, that duty is the orientation of new recruits.

"Ma nem be Zalaza, ah da shadowtusk trab..." the purple one tells me "Ma be followin Dambala, kin? Nepluton, eh says eh owes ye a favor, an wae be makin good on it" he explains, as he waves a turkey leg around expressively.

I nod. "That's appreciated." I tell him, taking a bite of my own Talbuck rib. I look around at the other four. "Are you the leader then? Or did you draw the short straw?"

The rest of the trolls break out in snorts and chuckles. "Nah, mon, Zal just be a mouthy bitch." A grey one with red eyes speaks. "I be Gedwa, of the bloodfen tribe. Torga be me Loa. I'm da healer." He stares at me challenging. At a guess, he's a blood troll. The Irony of him being a healer has probably been a significant hurdle for the group, but so long as he's not tainted by G'huun I'd be interested in blood magic. If nothing else, to sus out the differences between WoW and earth myths.

"Torga's a good one to follow, from what I hear" I reply blandly. Gedwa blinks stupidly for a moment but then grins widely around his tusks.

"Dats righ, son ah stone." He replies, sneering at his companions. "Togra beats..."

"Shut yer yap," another white one, this time with bandages instead of clothes and brown hands and feet interrupts, slapping him across the back of the head. This is a female troll, obviously Farraki. "Mah naime is Velratha, and I follow Mahamba, the crokalisk Loa. Meh be da tank. Da crystal Loa ya follow told meh yad ken wa dat means."

I shrug. "Mahamba grants you armored skin and an unbreakable grip, I'm guessing. Good for taking a beating and crushing your enemies."

She snorts. "Nah, I use elementals for dat. Mahamba ensures ah survive long enough for dem ta do da crushin."

I nod solemnly. Minion tank I guess? Whatever works. I turn to the blue one. "I am Thron'ja of the Drakkari," he said in the clearest voice of the lot "and I follow Graal the traveler, master of the deep. The teeth of my lord allow me to shred all opposition."

I grin. "It will be my privilege to speak to you, Thron'ja." I tell him, and the rest of the trolls look uncomfortable, as though I've just upset their balance. Internal politics probably. Oh well.

Then I turn to the last one. Ghaz'Ranka's champion. He clears his throat and speaks slowly. "I am Mando'fon, son of Mando'kir the bloodlord of Zul'Gurub. I follow Ghaz'Ranka, Guardian of the Gurubashi. I shall be your guide to my people, Tidebreaker."

Tide...breaker? That's new. Whatever, so long as it doesn't turn out to be a political disaster, I'll take it. "Is there anything I should know before I speak to the King of stranglethorn?" I ask him as Gortag sits down heavily beside me, tidestone necklace clattering. I ignore him as he swipes a half cooked slab of meat from the hot-plate and begins tearing into it.

"Ja, I mean, yeah. The current leader be, is, Hexlord Jin'do. The crystal Loa said you were looking for the emperor, but we haven't had one since Nepluton sunk the capital." He looks over the side of the ship at I'lalai, now floating above the waves for the first time in 1700 years. "Jin'do... is tricky. He is a wise and noble leader most of the time, but if offended, he will become... stubborn. Humiliation and banishment are the least of the punishments dealt for loss of face."

Well, there goes my plan to insult them and use their pride in their past to galvanize a renaissance out of them. "You speak from experience." It's a statement, not a question, his face says it all. "How would you suggest I go about it?"

"Ride up to the gates of Zul'Gurub as if you fear nothing." He replies instantly. "Show present yourself at your most powerful, and wear the shadow of your crystal loa for all to see. The loa are jealous and singular, we are each famous among trolls for being able to serve more than one at a time. If you can bring another under your banner do so. It matters not how small the Loa, just by doing this Jin'do cannot ignore you, though it still won't save you if you mess it up."

I snort, thinking back to the cities worth of Murlocs I just slew. "What if I wrangle a parade of them."

The five of them looked at each other. "Then you will be a legend. This has not been accomplished by a lone shadow priest since the Amani sought to crush the elves."

I nod, scratching my chin. "Gortag, think you can get Nepluton to come back?"

The old orc snorts, and continues eating. I'm not entirely sure that was even a response, other than the perfect timing. I'll deal with the old coot later. "Right, my first orders to the five if you then, is to go down to the hold and begin sorting the loot." I tell them firmly. "I want three piles. Stuff my crew can use, feel free to take anything you want from that pile. Second, presents for Jin'do and the Gurubashi, I expect that pile to be fairly large, unless tribute is taken as a sign of weakness?" I look between the five of them.

They look at each other and Gedwa scratches his head. "Usually, ya mon."

"Mando'fon?" I ask, pointedly.

He winces. "In most cases, but I think this will be taken as a sign of your strength, not as tribute. The Gurubi have been thus far unable to reclaim the treasures of I'lalai as we have the other ruined cities."

I nod firmly. "The last pile should be that which is trash. Any gold and enchantments that don't strike you as useful for the crew or bribes will end up being stripped for building materials. Gold resonates with the Holy Light and my Draenai are skilled in its crafting."

The five of them take that as a dismissal and each grab another piece of food before slinking off. I turn on Gortag then. "So, Tidebearer, that task is going to take them a while, and I can't move much until it's done. I think it's time we started those lessons."

He reaches into a pouch without responding and hands me another fern of Dreamfoil. When I offer him a raised eyebrow, he huffs. "Eat it, Ogre. The leaf will open your mind to the elements. In time you will not need the crutch, for for our first lesson it's the only think that will penetrate that rocky skull of yours."

I look at the fern with renewed interest. "You know I learned to see the elements of magic as part of mage training."

"Not like this, you don't" he bites back, gruffly. "Eat, before I lose patience." Shrugging, I do so. Chewing the blades of the dreamfoil is bitter and so after turning it to paste, I raise my glass of fruit juice to wash it down. Gortag's hand on my bicep gives me pause. "Not sugar. If you must wash it down, water. You should fast too, but I think you can handle a little pain." I snapped my fingers twice, the first to conjure a globe of water, which I sucked down, swished and swallowed. The second created a force construct that smacked him across the back of the head. That elicited a laugh.

Then the world exploded in a kaleidoscope of color.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

There was a reason, I suppose, that the Buddha's emerge from Lotus blossoms. As the magic of the dreamfoil worked itself through my stomach, my mind unfolded like a flower. Colors became sharper and changed to reflect the elemental powers within them, the souls of things began to burn like rainbow beacons and I found my gaze turning inwards like an inverted out of body experience.

In short, it's one hell of an acid trip.

As my minds eye sunk inward like the ever folding tesseract, I found myself on a kaleidoscopic platform faced with a golden tunnel built like a spiderweb of pure thought. Walking towards it, my body seemed to come apart. There was no pain, but first my clothes turned to mist and floated away, then my skin peeled off like I was discarding a wet t-shirt. By muscles were next revealing my shining inner core, and my organs quickly followed. I'd swear I looked like the Ghost Rider, but the transformation wasn't finished. As I climbed the glittering lines of golden rainbows my skeleton crumbled away and the formless light that was left shifted and changed,.. until i was once more myself.

_**MY**self..._ my human self. Mostly. My self image as I reached the next platform still had the Orc/ogre fangs, but my jawline was human. I still had Thurms tattoos, but not his grey skin. His muscles, but not his sheer size. My old Jeans and a Disturbed T-shirt stretched tight across my massive pecs.

_Who are you?_ It was not words, but concepts. The intent and mental images of the 'speakers' confusion and apprehension.

I turn to see Gortag standing, just as he is outside, on the other side of the platform, as more ladders extend in a dozen different directions and angles.

I grin widely, and full of teeth before responding in kind. _I'm Thurm, Gortag. The man behind the mask. _

He scowls. _You're... one of these Humans then. Thats why you have such enmity against my people. All your prophesies the Horde will destroy this land are knowledge from futures past._

I shrug, _Not quite. I'm more similar to the Draenai, to be perfectly honest. I'm human, but not from this world. On my world, we watch the lives and trials of a thousand other worlds and species as **entertainment**. My coming to one of the worlds we observe is **incredibly**_ _rare and due to the intervention of a higher demon, not the powers of my own people. It required me to die first, shedding my humanity and becoming someone else._

_And your hatred towards mine?_

I grin. _To redeem your people, we will need to summon that demon I spoke of when telling Garrosh his families fate. Mannoroth. Until then, any orc who drank from Gul'dan's cup is an irredeemable monster. And any orc who's skin has turned green due to being near the others is sick and dangerous as one with the Red Pox. _Gortag clenched his fist and the entire psychedelic reality we were in shuddered and the colors shifted wildly. _Mannoroth will die before your people do. And if you want to risk the spirits abandoning you and summon Mannoroth yourself, I will help you,_ I offered him _but until then, there is nothing that can be done except to reinforce those who would resist them. _

_The frostwolves have broken away. You could aid more to do the same._ he insisted.

I rub my chin slowly, considering. _I **could...** I just raised a city from the depths, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have free orcs running around. The Twilights hammer will do so as well, if Cho'Gall doesn't recover soon._

Gortag's image pales, and the shaking changes. _The Pale?_

_Yup, _I tell him, _My next target after the Gurubashi is the Dark Iron Dwarves to the north. They will fight the Horde to a standstill, and The Pale will sneak away, abandoning the horde in dozens per day until Cho'Gall takes over. When he does, he walks into Blackrock City unopposed, the Dwarves bowing before him, and he meets with their king. The Dark Irons serve the corrupted Fury of Fire and are chained to the void as it is, like soot cast by his flame. _

Gortag sits down, heavily, dissolving into a golden rainbow orb of pure thought and soul for what seems like several minutes before reforming. _This is why you want me to teach you my Path._

_The way of the Shaman, yes. _I reply, smirking, smugly as he bends further to my will. _I don't need it for the power, I've accumulated plenty. But now that I've agreed to trap myself on this world and Draenor, I would very much prefer **NOT** to be collateral damage as the Old Ones, The Titans and The Legion trample the mortal races under foot. _I let him view some few of my memories in those words, recollections of the cut-scenes from WoW and the warcraft RTS, given much more vivid shape and color by my imagination.

As Gortag absorbs what I'm showing him, his spirit self quavers again, shifting back and forth between focused and not. Slowly, he raises his hands and an image appears above them. That of a warped fantasy blade. Xal'atath the sacrificial dagger of the Black Empire and remnant of a fallen Old God. Gripping the handle of the blade is a long series of figures, only a small handful of which of which I recognize. C'thraxi, Mantid, hulking trolls, Nerubians, more trolls, Illithid, a couple of vyrkul who quickly mutate into Drust as the figures move on, LOTS of naga interspersed with a few Mogu, the flash of another Mantid, then Loken, Helya, more naga interspersed by trolls, some pygmies, a quick tauren, finally a troll I recognize(Min'loth), a couple of dwarves leading up to Modgud before moving on to a series of robed humans and naga sirens. Finally, we came to the REALLY interesting images. Teron'gor, Garona, Natalie Selene and Archbishop Benedictus.

My hand dashes away the illusion before it can show the champion of Azeroth and I replace it with another. Thurm offering the blade to K'ure, who annihilates it...

_What?_

_Don't even think of using that blade_ I tell him. _Not even one as arrogant as I feel confident I would wield it for good. It could help you summon and slay mannoroth, live to tell of it and perform many greater feats besides; feats on par with what I do, but every action will be poisoned in some manner. Instead of freedom, the orcs could simply be mastered by the Void. And that is the least worrisome scenario. _

He looks longingly at a shadow of the black blade for some time before shaking himself, and turning away. _Come, our first stop must be the ancestors. If you ever want to be a shaman of any value, you must learn how to come here on your own with but a thought, and we don't have much time to teach you._

Nodding, I follow quietly along.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

There are 5 levels to the spirit world, not counting the 4 discrete elemental planes or Twisting Nether. First and largest, is the Emerald Dream. This holds the literal dreams of the Titan Azeroth as well as a dozen or so sublayers the titans used to, for lack of a more apt description, play minecraft as they cleaned up after the Dark Empire. It's now used primarily by druids and dragons whose daily struggles serve as much to sedate her as they do to combat the Nightmare. While the dream holds vague "spirits of the land" and can subtly influence the living plants animals and even the dreams of mortals, it's not where the ancestors lie, druids aside.

The next layer down is Thros. That festering pit is readily accessible by only two points, thankfully. Kul'tiras and the Rift of Aln. This corrupted old god cyst on the Dream is largely cordoned off from the rest of it, and exists halfway between the Dream, and the Shadowlands. Also between the dream and there, is Helya's pocket-worlds of Hell and Skyhold. They circle each other like a yin-yang and for a moment, Gortag contemplates taking us there instead. All three microcosms hold souls of the dead that have yet to join Azeroths world soul, after all, and Helya and Odyn's choosiness ensures that both are filled with great souls who it would be foolish not to learn from, given half a chance.

Finally, there's the shadowlands. Filled with swirling luminescent blue mist and capped by the vortex WoW players see when they corpse run, this realm is run by renegade Valkyr who both refuse Hellya and either don't care or gave up trying to breach Skyhold long ago. They call themselves the spirit guides and act the part of the Grim Reaper; ferrying the dead to this afterlife, walking them through reincarnation or helping them join with Azeroth herself. The Loa, as it turned out were not exclusive to the Shadowlands either. Much as was written in the Chronicles, most of them formed from massive concentrations of spirit energy sinking into animals rather than phasing into the varying levels of the spirit realm. Only a few are the result of Voodoo priests mucking about. The shadowlands were in fact merely the place Loa went to recharge after being slain. Shadow hunters and voodoo priests traded with these dead Loa much as they do the living ones and the cunning spirits play both sides for the power to rebuild their bodies and manifest once more.

Discovering all of this had stressed Gortag more than anything else since joining my service. In Draenor, the spirit realm held all five elements in the same plane, layering only being a manner of courtesy between the four furies and the ancestors. Or snobbery, as I interpreted it. This confusion was a large part of why he'd been so out of sorts since coming to azeroth. Simply, he was too confused to give me shit.

Now that we were here, he had me walking up and down the ladders between the four elemental planes, two prime spirit planes and the twisting Nether; in order to familiarize my spirit with the act. Being able to do this at a thought was important for dealing with the elements.

That was another difference between what I knew and did and how shamanism worked. As a mage, you're a king. You _command_. Due to the nature of reality being order magic, everything could be laid out and explained by equations. _**EVERYTHING...**_ A mages lifes work was to learn those equations and how to write or alter them in the immediate area by sheer force of will, thus producing the effects we desire. A shaman on the other hand is a diplomat. You listen to the elements, sooth their pain, listen to their demands and bargain their assistance. It's very much like the life of a warlock navigating his demons, only... y'know, 80% less evil. Each of the five elements, spirit, fire, air, water and earth have their own personalities, their own desires and require individual attention to call upon. Worse if you're a traveler because the elements avowed suburbanites and very much dislike leaving the place the were born, matured, and if they get uppity, will likely die.

The exception to this are the elemental lords. They run the full range of nobility, from petty knights to dukes and princes, all of them bound beneath one supreme god of their element. Ragnaros, Al'aquir, Nepluton and Therazane. All of them are pretentious as fuck and generally hate each other. Or if the Chronicle is to be believed, it's not hate as much as they want to kill each other endlessly just for the sheer fuck of it. And like Nobility, you either need to bow, scrape and endlessly curry favor, or throw your weight around in the elements internal politics and hope you survive long enough to gain their respect. Do that, and you can call on them any time and any where. Not the easiest task ever, but I'm already 2 for 7.

The training takes five days at this accelerated pace before I'm able to hear my first elemental spirit without tripping balls. Her name is Samiya, a spirit of the ocean wind. Her presence is the cool breezes with buffet my ship and crew when a greater elemental such as a storm isn't moving through the area. Mostly air, there's a hint of water magic in her makeup that translates as the smell of salt brine and a minor regenerative effect when in contact with her.

She's also irritated that the Dutchman is blocking her jet stream. It does at least make appeasing her easy, and from it, I get the promise to refresh my crew whenever she's around.

The next element is that of fire. Calcifer, the spirit of our cooking fire, poor guy. He's hungry, always ever, constantly hungry. Oddly, he hangs around whether the fire is lit or not, but it's much easier to hear him when it's burning which isn't a surprise. Negotiating with him is as simple as setting ever-burning-lamps around the ship in place of the ubiquitous enchanted lights. From him I get my first of 4 forge elementals.

Finally, I hear the first elemental I should have been able to perceive, Lagoonus, the spirit of the Vile Reef. Unfortunately, he's also mad as hell at me, for messing up his seabed and raising the city. Formed of water, sand and coral, Lagoonus is a fusion element of earth and water and quite busy wearing away at the pillars supporting I'lalai Thousands of much smaller elementals of water and earth had beegun to creep their way into the various districts and are duking it out with the trolls of Stranglethorn. I'lalai was, after all, their former imperial capital.

It was as I was beginning to hear Lagoonus that the Shadowhunter team finished sorting out the Treasures from I'lalai. Each of the five was fully blinged out and I noticed much to my own surprise that more than a few of my Draenai crew were now wearing armor as well. Heavily modified Human armor set with a fair amount of gold that shone even in the dark, intricate runework everywhere and purple crystals accenting every piece. It's wasn't slap myself in the face obvious, but looking for it it was hard to justify having missed it over the last two weeks.

I blame the drugs.

"Ey, boss mon. Wey don da job." one of them (Zalaza) greeted, setting down a solitary backpack, before tipping it over, spilling a literal mountain of gold and stone items before the hole got backed up. "Wad chu ken we do now?" My answer was preempted by a sound from below as there was an almighty _**CRACK!**_ and I sighed, getting up from the deck.

Moving to the rail I looked down on the city and observed the damage. On the upside, the city wasn't splitting apart and sinking back into the depths of the reef. My thick foundation of buoyant pumice stone was doing it's job. But... the pillars anchoring the city in place and providing secondary support were gone. I could feel Lagoonus triumph turning to confusion as the city began to float further out into the bay.

"Tell the blink gunners to grab you a few trees and start fashioning sedan litters to carry it all. I'll be back in a moment." I tell them, and jump off the side of the boat.

I fall like a stone for the first 20 feet or so, before feeling Samiya passing by. She calls to me, concerned, and I welcome her presence like a cloak. Activating my own cloak, I begin flying and she follows, curious. We land minutes later in the middle of a small army of trolls, Samiya's gusts clearing a space for me, alerting the army to my presence and soothing their fatigue and injuries.

The fact that there are even trolls injured long enough to need retreat is perhaps an indication of Lagoonus ire, as anything that doesn't more or less immediately kill a troll is usually regenerated within 20 hours. There's the roar of a wave, and any aggression the trolls might have planned for me is turned away as Mando'fan rides in, having apparently followed me over the side.

Showoff.

The wave sweeps through the defenders lines, dissipating on the shields of their casters and allowing him to crest down the deluge like slide or escalator to land beside me.

Surrounded by a horde of now thoroughly disgruntled trolls.

"Greetins, Gan'zulah." Mando'fan says, waving to the big one with the greatest amount of ornamentation. "Chieftain oh da bloodscalp."

"Greetin, Mando'fon," the chieftain hisses "outcast oh da Gurubashi. Wad you be doin bak eer. Ya god ah deat weesh?"

"Nam wae, I be kin ya me tad ah de tap, Thurm, de Tidebreaker."

I took this as my que to introduce myself and thumped my staff on the stone tiles. A wave of arcane force rippled out through the stone, which already knew my touch from the rising, and spears of arcane ice and fire erupted out from the battle lines, dispersing the current wave of elmentals harrassing the Trolls beachhead. "I am Thurm, Runemaster and champion of Neptulon, the Tidehunter." I tell the bloodscalp chief. "I raised I'lalai from the depths, drove the humans from your shore, and have come here from the sea of stars to warn your people of invasion. Take me to your leader."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

After that, things progressed quickly. The trolls were suitably impressed by my actions and proclamation, and their chief did just what I asked of him. A 'small honor guard of 200 trolls joined us in leaving I'lalai and I sent a message up to Gorka to do what she could to quell Lagoonus. She sent a message back with another wind elemental Jabir, that Gortag had handled it by using the Tidestone and just for effect, the old man called me a pussy for not taking care of it myself.

Mando (apparently fon literally meant 'banished', 'exiled' or 'dishonored' while his fathers appellation Kir meant 'honored' or 'war leader') and I stood on a wave as we rode to shore, the Bloodscalp's boats dragged along by our wake. By the time we landed, 30 of my own crew and the other 4 shadow hunters had gathered on the beach with pallets piled high with the spoils of I'lalai. Rather than my people holding the litters and leaving themselves vulnerable, Mando cadjoled Gan'Zulah to have his men lift them while mine formed ranks around the treasure bearers. The remaining trolls formed ranks around my people, making for a rather tense atmosphere...

A bit of negotiation with Samiya cooled every-bodies nerves and we left the beach without incident. The Dutchman flew above us as we ran and I drew power from it to enchant the army with [Haste] and power Samiya to bless everybody with [wind walking] granting essentially unlimited stamina, the ability to walk on water, jump cliffs and know the path of least resistance through Stranglethorn's dense jungles.

Night fell, and a cooked meal was sent down from my hold for me and all of the trolls, who were greatful for the repast. More importantly however, K'ure and Nepluton's observer Alluvius floats down with them. Where the trolls were simply wary and respectful of me for my power, they were awed by my two "Great Loa".

The next morning, the number of trolls marching with us had swelled from a few over 200 to nearly 500. A few of my Thurmites had gotten into altercations with the trolls as they tried to steal the Arkonite weapons or various pieces of armor during the night, but there had been no deaths thanks to the intervention of K'ure. Numerous trolls had however found crystals I suspected came from basalisk victims in the nearby valley and forged crude effigy's of my rainbow god.

Their worship is disturbing K'ure quietly informed me as we started our morning run. The Lower leg representing death overflows with their prayers and I feel as though I am missing something.

"A loa is about give and take," Mando jr speaks up from my side. "By de principle of blood, they offer you their daily power an devotion. In exchange, de Loa answer their prayers with blessings and direction. Yeh don need to answer every time, but the less yah answer the fewer prayers will come your way."

I glance sidelong at the Naaru "how do you not know about this? The Draenai have been praying to you for 50 thousand years, haven't they?"

It is not the same, K'ure insists. Priests of the Holy Light channel the essence of the light itself. The Draenai had forgotten about us long before Sargeras corrupted them and we rescued the survivors. This is the way. We guide, but we are not gods. We guard, but we do not corrupt. We defend, but we do not fight.

"Which is why the army of light is failing." I counter. "And don't give me that shit. The Naaru like the Void Gods were born of spirit, and when darkened the sacrifice of willing souls is what reignites you. it's why you and D'ore gathered the souls of dead Orcs and Draenai in Oshogun and Auchindoun."

At that, K'ure was silent for several minutes before speaking again. I am answering their prayers. Mando'fon, is there anything in particular you suggest?

"Follow your nature." He replies, shrugging. "It is strange to instruct a Loa, but I have neva seen one such as you."

K'ure's core, violet of arcane accented by small shards of soul stone blue flickers and pulses and the trolls holding crystal fetishes cry out in ecstasy as a rainbow of colors (mostly violet) shines off their skin.

"Be certain not to give them too much, K'ure." I caution as the pace picks up and the blessed trolls begin singing. "We haven't finished the primary elements yet, so an imbalance could be..."

The balance will be maintained. K'ure answers curtly. Spirit fuels the light and dark eye, with eyes wide open the Netherlight is forged. Troll magi will be an interesting addition to their culture.

Already the dozen or so holding the crude gemstone mockeries are forming into groups of three. None of the triads is leaking void energies yet, but I've a bad feeling it won't take long.

~! #$%^&*(_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

We reach the gates of Zul'Gurub shortly after lunch. It would have been before, but to get there we had to pass through a massive squatters hovel that makes up most modern Troll architecture. Bambala, meaning puppet is where the lower class of Gurubashi live, outside the walls of the great ruin. Made of sticks, leaves and sinew there is no clear model of architecture to the place nor real navicable streets. The one paved runway leading from Zul'Gurub to the coast where I'lalai once sat is overgrown with huts stalls and tents here, rather than jungle vegetation and it takes some time to clear.

This, I suspect, is done intentionally rather than by random chaos and anarchy. If you're hostile, you're slowed down by the urban jungle you have to smash your way through, breaking up any charge upon the city. If you're friendly, it gives the plebs spectacle and the upper class of Zul'Gurub time to prepare for your arrival.

Case in point, when we finally reach the ridge, three figures are waiting for us, riding atop palinquin and flanked by heavily armored trolls whose standardized armor quivvers with suppressed power.

Two of the trolls are expected. Jin'do the Hexxar, King of Stranglethron Vale and Mandokir the Bloodlord, general of the armies of Stranglethorn.

The third is Prophet Zul.


	14. Chapter 14

Zul was here. Because of course he is. Fucking prophets. The question I suppose, as I tense for combat, is whether this is Zul of the vague visions from Vanilla Hakkar and Throne of Thunder, or Zul the laser focused visionary of Ghun who could navigate around walking forces of nature, entire spy agencies and set stormwind to the torch, all without slowing down. This is my fault, I suppose. I should have expected that he would be here after Velen started treating me like an old but frustrating friend he knew he could count on, for all the aggravation doing so would cause him. I'd already begun to suspect that the five man teams who kept showing up were an effect of Chromie messing about.

My party, and the trolls surrounding them, sensed by agitation and began tensing as well, when Zul stepped forward and spoke. "I am a stranga, traveling from da west, seeking dat which is lost."

So... he knows pop culture references. But which is that good? Or bad? "I am a stranger, traveling from the East, it is I that you seek."

"Ey, you two gonna let da rest ah us in on da secret?" The king of Zul'Gurub asked, looking miffed. "Ya been nutin bud mysterious since ya arrived er, brudda."

"I am Thurm." I told him, going into public speaking voice. "Runemaster, Tide Breaker, last of my people, messiah of a dying world. My crew and I come to you from the sea of stars bearing a warning and a hero of the Gurubi people. The emerald flame of chaos returns to this world after 10,000 years of plot and proxy. Their vanguard spews forth from ancient Gurubi land, deep in the black morass. My world has already fallen to the flame, but yours does not need to as well. Will you hear my story?"

He looked down on me "Welcome ta Zul'Gurub, mon" The Hexlord told me, bowing theatrically "da greatest show on eart. Chu an ya crew be welcome er, bud some people be knowin beta dan ta show der faces. Bloodlord, why don chu show dem de hospitality ah da grave?" As he spoke I could feel the world shudder and snap, as suddenly a barrier keeping the Dutchman back by the shanty town released, allowing it to shudder forward.

Returning my attention to the scene before me, I almost missed the red mohawk troll beside him cracking his knuckles and grinning menacingly. "Be mah pleasure, boss."

A hand reached up to my shoulder and I glanced down to see Mando jr there. "I be sorry, boss man. Me an me fadda got old business ta seddle afore I helpin ya. So di ting set, ken?" His accent got progressively thicker as he talked.

"Go. When you're done with family business, join me again."

Mando Jr and Sr began slowly moving off to the side, prowling like two tigers sizing each other up and I contacted Charybdus, the elemental knight Neptulon had granted me, asking him to send quiet support Jr's way. A quintet of muddy trails broke off from beneath the elementals feet and began to flow after the shadowhunter.

"Ye shoulda known bedda dan to come back er boy." the red armored raptor rider taunted. "It hurts ya fadda ta see ya like dis."

"Keep talkin old man, an I'll show ya de true meanin ah pain."

With that pronouncement, they vanished down a side street. Turning to the Hex lord, I was taken slightly off guard as he held out his hand to me. "Come. Come! Da prophet warned me ah ya visit and we be preparin a grand feast for da return ah da Tidebearer an es friends." With that pronouncement, he turned away, waving me forward until Gortag and I joined him. Once we had done so, he began talking animatedly. It was hard to understand the troll through the thick accent (why wasn't arcane language translating it properly? Did I need to change the runes somehow?) but the lecture on troll history was quite interesting. As we moved through the neighborhoods and canals, I was treated to the story of each of the various temples, pyramids, businesses and chief's palaces. Each one reads like an adventure novel and covered thousands of years of history.

All the while, in the background, there are sounds of raptors screaming, waves crashing and two very impressive sets of lungs bellowing insults at each other. It's a pity I didn't have the presence of mind to construct an arcane intelligence capable of recording it.

"It's not going to go as you plan, kind" a smooth voice interrupts my thoughts. I turn to see Zul walking silently beside me, his purple eyes straight forward, and a grin twitching behind his tusks.

"It never does, old man." I reply, amused. "You'd do well to remember that."

He looks at me slowly, not changing pace. "Ah yes, yah see our world from outside ah time. But do no be forgetting that you be within now. Tha river can be changed with enough rocks, as you say," he continues amused "but who be tossin the rocks when ya be dragged along in tha current?" He shakes his head. "Hakkar belong to da trolls, kind, mess with him an all ya plans be thrown akimbo."

I snort. "I suppose that's why you didn't see Rastakan break your neck and throw you off the top of the palace then?" I ask him, with the same false pleasantry. "Hakkar clouded your visions just when it was all going right? Or was it that stupid idea you had to stop the wheels and let Ghun loose? You know listening to the tentacles will split even the most even keel."

The prophet laughed low, "You think that, but you do not know what I see. Without my machinations, Ghun would have been ignored by ya heroes. He would grow in powa as Zandalar sunk slowly beneath the waves. An den... from the sea he would come, unstoppable; a corruption even in the eyes of the gibbering shadows." He grinned broadly. "If my death be enough to teach my people how to throw off the chains ah millennia in neglect an move forward, free of corruption an rot, It be a price I humbly pay. Yah know it worked out, even if I be left behind. Yah din see it, traveler from da west. Dinya?"

I huffed as hummed a few bars as they came to mind, before softly singing "How low can I keep pretending to be? That all the stars in the sky could mean something to me... That Heaven'll open up if I live on my knees, a man of many words but a man of few deeds." I return the trolls dark grin, "I've long wondered just how you see things, Zul. The light would see what will be in perfect clarity, if only for the interference of the Shadow. The Dark sees all possible timelines but cannot know which will happen. The arcane sees the root of things and how they flow into one another bridging time and distance equally, but choice, free will, can confuse even the most adept diviner. Tell me dark prophet... how do the spirits see?"

"Me brudda's an I, we see the shape ah tings to come. The loa give us dreams of great events years, decades, even millennia in advance. Tings that cannot be stopped; the Timeline as you call it. But we do not see any event in detail until it is time to act. To find the best outcome. I suspect des..._developers_ see things tha same. They be wrong in much, I have seen as you approach but right in many tings too, so I suspect they do not create us like gods." He cackles aloud, drawing the attention and irritation of Jin'do. "But mebe dat be da lies we tell to comfort ourselves, ya?"

And the Bleeding hollow saw the time, place and nature of their deaths, so they knew they could act however they wanted until then. _Fascinating_. Of course, if this method accounts for your reaction to seeing the future, you'd probably die at a different time, place and situation if you hadn't looked.

"If ya quite finished," The hexx lord snarked, "Da feast..."

Zul'Gurub's hospitality, provided by positive reference of Prophet Zul, is quite impressive. A dozen types of meat, dozens of fruits, no real pasta grains or veg, but plenty of spices. Ooooh the spices. The tables were _loaded_, heavily enough for the nobility and clergy of the 5 tribes of the Gurubashi Empire, and my crew to get pleasantly stuffed. Fire dancers and a choir of souls and a crazy number of drums serve as entertainment and the Gurubi subtly try to court Gortag.

It's quite amusing to watch actually. If I'm guessing right, they've tried to poison him more than a dozen times, but with a glint of the tidestone water washes across every dish as he bites into it, leading to looks of disappointment. Numerous glowing and simple knives have been turned away from his back, kidneys and neck by shields of water. I'm sure he's noticed, I mean how could he not, but he hasn't given any indication of it. And all the while, the trolls responsible for it keep making appeals to him. Join us, we'll give you girls, gold and glory. Defect, the Tidebreaker is a cultural icon and (we need/deserve/are owed) it's (service/possession). Hand over the artifact, it's sacred to the Gurubi people and your possession of it is a fluke/aberration/abomination/sign enough we should ally with your cause.

In all cases, Gortag's gruff repost, if he even stops eating to talk, is that if they want it so much, they should pilgrimage to I'lalai and petition Neptulon at the Altar of the Deep. The Tidehunter alone will judge if they are worthy to be the Tidebearer.

"Enough, I will not leave the Tide breaker until the Great Tree. I have seen it, do not try my patience, troll."

I was about to chuckle at the orcs latest reply, as it was obvious he was quickly losing patience, but the counter stopped me cold. "Hey, dats no problem, handsome." I looked up to see a troll woman wearing panther furs over ornate robes that shiver with the impotent rage of suppressed souls. "Da tree be a short jaunt tru human lands. De bright wood be contested, no one notice a few trolls huntin dragons."

Gortag and I stiffen, though for different reasons. _Shit..._ _I'd forgotten about the trees of nightmare. _Planted by Fandral Staghelm from branches of Nordrasill to cleanse the taint of Sauronite bubbling up through the planet's crust. The Dream Gates allowed the Old Gods _**back**_ into the emerald dream as the Emerald nightmare even as it neutralized the whispering metal, the blood of tainted gods. That same connection could be used again,.. and could also provide a means by which Gortag could learn to cleanse the Orcs of their own taint.

The prick himself is probably getting another vision now his leaving at the tree vision has been given context.

"Hona'd guests!" Hexx Lord Jin'do calls out, silencing the music and gaining everybody's attention. "Now dat we ave all been fed an watered, it is tam for business! Hona'd Zandalar as sent it's own prophet Zul to advise us, ah warnin for dark tams ahead! He has counseled we hear from de foreigners lips rada dan der scremin souls, so let us here! Entertain us, Thurm Runemasta, known as Tidebreaka. Tell us about des visitors from de stars."

Standing up, I walked to stand beside the Hexx Lord and cast my public speaking spell. "The history of my people is ancient and I expect you care little for it" there was a chorus of chuckles from the troll priests and I smile "but it has bearing the the current crisis nonetheless." My fingers twitched in a pattern as mnemonics wove a spell of light and memory. "My people, and the orcs," I gestured at Gortag "are descendants of the taming of our world by the Titan Aggramar." A world of lava formed as I spoke before becoming covered in choking vines. Aggramar's bronze bearded form rose behind it and formed a Gron like clay from one of the mountains. It began tearing at the vines, to reveal the current map of Draenor before the defeated vines attacked it and broke it apart. The Gron mutated into the breakers, then the Orgren, Ogres and finally brown orcs.

"When the Burning Legion arrived on our world, the fallen Titan Sargeras used this connection to the titans to corrupt the Orcs," The brown orc was assaulted by green fire and gained height, muscle mass, green skin and burning red eyes "much the same way they corrupted the elves ten thousand years ago." Purple trolls drank from a well of glittering blue and gold liquid becoming elves. The event caused the trolls to hiss all around me and I continued showing the blue elves opening their arms to the green fire and becoming Satyrs. I waved a hand through the image, dismissing it as the trolls began to mutter in confusion. They began looking at Gortag with suspicion and I moved on.

"The green orcs have destroyed our world," I continue, showing green veins spreading across the map of Draenor, leaving black pits behind as they expand and spread "and their mere presence corrupted even those who did not sell their souls to the demons fire." I then showed another orc brown orc beside the red eyed one with clear normal eyes who's skin slowly turned green as though suffering from disease. Gortag shifted uncomfortably, glaring daggers at me and I winked at him. "Recently though, their leaders realized that the Legions promise of paradise was a lie and began seeking another world to consume." I dismissed the images of the fel orc and corrupted orc, replacing it with Gul'Dan, complete with red eyes, hunched back and spines coming out of his back. "They found allies on this world in Medivh, Guardian of Tirisfal." The brown robed human mage and his staff Atiesh. The trolls hissed again, but I could tell they liked the idea of a human being the bad guy. "The Guardian has fallen to the legion his mother spent 1000 years fighting and invites the Orcs here to be his army." I showed Medivh and Gul'Dan shaking hands, then the scenes of each of them empowering the portal. They liked the idea that a human was weak even more, by the war chant now picking up around the temple courtyard.

I showed them another scene, this time from my own memory, of the Orcs pouring through both sides of the portal and into the black Morass before zooming out to a map of southern Azeroth. "Even now, the Legions orc pawns spew forth from the portal and spread across former Gurubi land." The jungle of the morass began to turn red and spread out like spilled wine. The stain continued north into the swamp of sorrows and I conjured a quick image of the temple city of Atal'Hakkar as the orc tide washed over it and north through first Red-ridge and then into the Burning Steppes. They also expanded outward until the stain was washing over the mountains separating Zul'Gurub from the Morass and moving into Stranglethorn. "Medhiv will try to direct the Horde to attack the Humans, seeking to conquer them and become king. If you allow them, they will destroy the humans for you" the war chant turned to cheers and I cranked up the volume to retain their attention "but stranglethorn is familiar to the Orcs and thus more desired. It is more similar to their old home than human lands and they will come here if you do not stop them. If you were to ally with them, you could turn them back on the humans, but to do so would come at a price."

I paused for a beat and showed them an image of Gul'Dan creating the 'Fist', draining the elemental of it's energies and funneling them into the Horde for their attack on Karabor. I made it clear the Draenai were easily holding the Horde off before the Elemental died. "The Horde will demand you hand them your Loa to fuel their war effort, and leave the lands of Stormwind a dead land of ash and monsters. Then, if they do not turn on you, it will be because they intend to corrupt you as they were." I showed them the scene atop the Throne of Kiljaden where Gul'Dan offered the cup of pit lord blood.

"The only path where the Gurubi survive is resistance. The only answer to orcish incursion is war."

The Hexx Lord saunters up to inspect my images. "I see a lodda pretty lights, mon, but whad chu got da tells us dis be da truth? Mebe you be the threat an da horde our friends. Ya bring one ah dem here" he gestures to Gortag "wearin our heroes mantel. What say da loa not want dem here an you gone? Great silvertonge."

I huff. "You want your Loa's word on the subject, why don't you ask them?" I looked out to the crowd arrayed before me. "Many among you are priests. Tell me, what do the Loa have to say about my truth?"

The crowd quieted, turning to the High Priests, who, under the pressure of their gazes pulled out hex bags. Some sniffed the bags, others pulled out leaves and began eating, a few simply prayed and more began shaking the bags over flame. A host of shadows appeared over the priests, showing animals and ancestors alike. As they spoke with their gods, I grabbed a gourd of honey and blood wine, taking a sip to sooth my throat. The whispers began to return as an agitated buzz the longer the priests remained silent.

Finally, the first priest returned. Her eyes glowed a brilliant teal and when she spoke her throat was a pit of light as well. "_**The interloper speaks the truth. If not all of it.**_" The priestess of Mahamba speaks, her voice buzzing like bad CGI. "_**The Horde will not, cannot, be suffered to live. But the Orcs may still be allies.**_" She turned to point a now clawed finger at Gortag. "_**Those of lesser corruption like him can still be saved. Enslaved. Uplifted.**_"

Another priest, this one bearing the three headed shadow of Gaz'ranka added their own two cents. "_**Thurm shall be a useful tool. Trust him not, follow him not, but allow to his manipulations. For now...**_"

Another priest, this time the Tiger glowed with a golden aura alongside his teal eyes and mouth. "_**The empire shall rise again.**_"

"_**Seven tribes, three leaders, one purpose.**_"

"_**The emerald flame will forge the future. Withstand and thrive, or surrender and die.**_"

After that, it just sort of devolves. The Loa start giving out orders and my party quickly turns into a hive of activity. Naal'Suul gets my attention, pointing out how the Trolls are subtly herding the Draenei into multiple small groups. Right, it's time to leave. With a snap of my fingers, Arcane familiars launch skyward, diving into the ship. In moments, the gunnery platforms on the sides, six of them now rather than 4, fold out and begin summoning my people back to the ship.

As the Trolls start to notice, the Shadowhunter team returns. Mando jr is dragging his father by the foot, and Gedwa throws the head of his raptor mount to roll through the swarm of trolls. "We beat ya bloodlord bloody!" Gedwa the blood trolls shouts, getting everybody's attention. "Dis da best ya do?" My people are almost completely evacuated now, and my personal guard are beginning to flash back down, forming around me. Naal, Kiel, Samaara, Jasune, Bali'ir and Kali'ir. Zalaza, Thron'ja and Velratha join me quietly as the Blood troll continues to draw attention to himself.

"Blood troll," Ana'thek, chieftain of the bloodscalps roars. "Even the golden tribe spits on you! Ya got some nerve comin here."

"HA! Nerve I got a plenty, ya useless peasants!" the shadow hunter of Torga mocked. "Two millennia an still ya grovel on ya bellies. Ya canna reclaim ya lands from dogs! Ya canna defeat humans. Ya canna even defeat an outcast like me! I look around an I see ya squattin in the ruins ah ya own cities. Rot an rot alike! I dinna tink I could do betta cursin ya dan what ya do ta ya-selves! What makes ya tink ya loa can revive de empire when ya canna even face da curse ah Hakkar?!"

"And what do you even know of Hakkar?" Jin'do sneered, hexxing Mando'fon into a frog before conjuring a series of chained souls to menace the blood troll.

He spread his arms out to the sides and blood begins to seep out of the ground, forming wings behind him. "Me people da legacy ah Hakkar! We led Zandalar in da campaign ta kill the black loa K'thrax! We made de blood plague an fed de empire on its swarms! Hakkar taught us all we know! An den you fuckers got dat knife! Hakkar will rise again, an it will be de end ah da Gurubashi. De end ah King Jin'do! Ya too weak, ken? Two thousan years an ya not even rebuild! Pathetic! Come! COME! Fight me! I crush ya here an na! Why wait?"

All the the Draenei are on the ship now, just me and my personal entourage. "Because you answer to me, Shadowhunter." I boom, stepping forward. "And I still have plans for the Gurubashi." Plans for you too, with that little reveal. I hadn't even planned to go after Hakkar before Zul brought it up. This... would certainly put a wrench in anything I tried to do. And would even explain why I might do something as silly as mess with the soulflayer.

Stamping the butt on my staff on the table holding the feast, chips of stone begin to spring up in a waterfall as lines and symbols carve themselves into the surface. With a mental command to my arcane familiars, the Shadowhunters vanish back up into my ship and only my honor guard, Charybdus and K'ure remain. "These are portal stones." I told the gathered trolls, as ten paired stones fall out of the banquet table. "Use them as the cap-stone in an archway and they will allow you to travel along the ley lines, from one door to another. There are ten pairs, for ten doors. Zul, you know how I intend to distribute them?"

"Ya mon, I know. Five to connect the tribes to Zandalar. Five more to connect the tribes to each othda ina circle." The priests replies lazily. "I get dem delivered. Trade, unification, conquest. In dat orda. No funny business. Tata now."

And in a flash of teleportation, I leave my rather disastrous meeting with the Gurubashi.

"That went well."

#$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Two months ago:

Velen knew the moment the future changed. He had been in the middle of a council meeting discussing the disposition of fishing equipment, shroud crystal allocation and the burgeoning mutations among the Light-lost. Or as the less charitable had taken to calling them, the Broken. Reality had torn and the thinning veil of darkness clouding his foresight had been pierced as though a white hot ice pick had been driven into his skull.

The Remaining had panicked, nearly starting a civil war as they had accused Akama, the dear boy, of infecting the prophet with his orcish corruption and tried to attack him. It was only because of the light shining out of his mouth, nose, ears and eyes like a sun that things hadn't devolved further. Anchorite Almonen had taken charge of the situation and cleared the room. Velen had heard the crash as the table had been cleared and layered with cushions, before he had been carefully lifted by the priest onto the surface.

While all of this was happening, Velen writhed in tortured soul deep agony as the events of the next 30 years played themselves out before him. His people would continue to degenerate. These initial signs, the light loss and rotten horns were only the beginning. They would become shrunken twisted wretches, living in constant pain as fel and void corruption forced continual mutations upon them. Those with the strongest wills would become hateful wretches, hunting the Horde as assassins, embracing the shadows and pawns of the Legion in the name of reclaiming what was lost. The environment would die alongside them, claiming first the Saberon, then the last of the Bottinai. The Arakoa would descend into madness, first enslaving their god, Anu, and then, listening to the whispers in the dark, would begin calling something far far darker to consume the world.

But then... there was a break in the spiral! In the other world, bathed in the blood of the foul horde, would march heroes. The lights of Creation, Order and technology shone from their armor and weapons as they marched through the Dark Portal to bring the fight to the Horde on this world. The Broken would fight alongside them and they would WIN!

Except... oh no..! Velen's heart nearly broke as he watched Ner'zhul wielding the Skull of Gul'dan, the Scepter of Sargeras and a curious foriegn artifact to open new Dark Portals, five in all, and step through.

The event ripped Draenor asunder. What was left of the Arakoa was barely enough to sustain a breeding population and the world itself was cast into the Twisting Nether, a way station between a hundred worlds of the materium and the collected horrors of the immaterium.

Then salvation came. Xe'ra, the Prime Naaru, the oldest and most powerful of the..._artificial race?_ Oh dear. No, light, please no... Xe'ra and Adal came in the wake of the cataclysm. Xe'ra took the champions of the new world, Turalyon and Alleria while Adal collected his fallen people from hidden enclaves across Draenor and brought them to Tel'Redor. Most of them boarded the Tempest Keep, where they were greeted by half a million of their brothers and sisters from the time of the fall.

This was the Army of Light. They were who he had been promised. 6 more ships and two dozen Naaru.

That... was it.

And Xe'ra was a fanatic, forging the living just as an artificer would forge a weapon.

The visions went on and on. Another decade of hiding upon the ship. Attacked and defeated by those who should have been their allies. Who, had they only asked, they could have happily saved. Crash landing on the new world. The loss of 90% of the army in the crash, leaving the rest of them brain damaged, while M'uru was left to scream and cry as the other titan born race fed on her like ticks. Being unable to blame them, in light of all they had recently suffered at the hands of an undead plague and repeated betrayals.

But even in the dawn that broke over this nightmare there was only more tragedy. The survivors of the crash would spread out into the new world, many of them dying pointlessly on a world that seemed to delight in their pain, while others saved and were saved by alien's time and again. They overcame brutal monstrous foes of the Legion and Void Lords one after the other, each victory whittling away them away just a little more.

Then his heart shattered. The Legion came to attack the new world. And unlike this one, it did not work through mere proxies, but descended upon them in it's full glory and terrible fury. Worst of all... His son... his dear, poor boy, thought lost 25 thousand years ago, returned to lead the legions assault on the Exodar. This was the vision he had been shown all those millenia ago, where he held the disintegration body of a foul eradar in his arms and wept tears of untold grief...

The champions... those who were the hope of a thousand worlds... they would slay his son in front of him.

And he had to let them.

It was not fair.

Velen cursed the light then, fury and grief mixing in his heart and reverberating across the connection, but still the visions would not stop.

The champions would work hand in hand with a demon, a fusion of the other titan born and an eradar. The monster would acquire the Sagerite Keystone and use it to open a portal large enough to swallow an entire world. Argus, hung in the sky of the foriegn world and the invasion began in earnest. The champions invaded the broken husk of his home, plowing through the demons ranks like a rampaging clefthoof, every color of the magical spectrum blazing from their bodies as they grinned crazed bloodthirsty smiles, howling for 'loot', 'agro' and 'deeps'. Like demons, they died and were reborn in waves, bringing victory and desolation in equal measure.

Yet, even in victory, the blows keep coming.

Many draenei it seemed, had managed to survive and resist the Legion. Reunions with old friends, oh so many of them, as Kor'krul shadowalkers and demons. The discovery of the Titans. The revelation that as the Champions of the new world rampaged across his world, Sargeras manifested fully on their own.

Then came the final vision. The Pyrrhic Victory. The Demon whom he would work beside as a brother gathered the souls of the titans, defeated the soul of his dear home Argus, and sealed Sargeras away with the rest of the Pantheon.

But Sargeras stabbed his blade Deep into Azeroth. It was only luck that the tip slammed into the chained body of C'thun, slaying the sealed monster once and for all. But as inky darkness consumed the vision he could see the world bleed...

Finally... finally, Velen thought, the visions are over. Surely there cannot be anything more? Things cannot get worse? When you land at the bottom, things can only get better!

But the solid veil of shadows covering his mind were not the end. Cracks of hungry red light formed through the oily cloud over his foresight and then it shattered. A constantly reforming face bloody light and mismatched eyes stared at him, and grinned. Time began to wind backwards as the creature laughed as on another world, a soul was taken. Offered in sacrifice, it amused the horrific being with it's impertinence. Bravery, cruel spite and calm acceptance in the face of the unstoppable. The soul was taken from a shining world full of technology and peace, troubled only by petty conflicts despite a bevy of cosmic horrors preying upon it's population.

Then, it was stuffed into the body of an Ogre, of all indignities. Worse, the fool boy had _chosen_ to become one of the barbarous thugs.

But wherever he went... things changed. Time warped and bent around him, not breaking down, but forming new orders. New possibilities blossomed from his every action and Velen found that he could control the vision for the first time in... ever. Desperate, and away of the laughter of the being that had caused this situation, Velen searched each future for what it held. There were victories and defeats in all of them, tragedies and triumphs of life and myth, but where he did not also tread, things were almost as bad for the Draenai as without Thurm.

The choice was clear. If his people were to survive, to thrive, to avoid the calamities of the future, they would need to work _with_ this Thurm. Not to force his hand, but to act as conscience to his heart. The boy would reject anyone as heavy handed as himself, but a friend... a friend could take the reigns of that world altering power and wed it to their own interests.

For the future of the Draenei, for Velen's own peace, he knew what he must do.

Now:

Looking over the consecrated steppes of Karabor, Velen made an adjustment to his light-map. Orders flowed out from the crystal sheet to the necklaces of his followers updating their "quest's" and he watched in real time as the flow of traffic changed. He never would have imagined doing things like this before his visions of the Runemaster, but it was necessary. Even though the boy had returned Karabor to them, he had still left with much that needed to be done, and when he returned, from the other world, he would welcome the familiarity of the new system.

One where a person's skills were objectively quantified, catalogued, manipulated and rewarded. It was coercion at it's finest, a system where people embraced being controlled. Thurm would joke about it when they met again, revealing each others systems to the other. "Would you kindly,.?"

But it was working. The flight and dimensional transport rings were almost complete, and the Horde was still none the wiser. One warship had come to investigate the silence of the black temple, from the north, but they had sunk it with non survivors. There was just one more thing to do before they could take off.

"Prophet." A gravelly voice sounded from over his left shoulder. Ah, right on time.

"They are here then, Akama?" Velen asked calmly.

The former Exarch grunted, used to his leaders semi-omniscience, but still struggling to surprise him. "Yes. Skiiris of the Shadowbough consortium and Grish of pride rock, along with their respective tribes. They wish to join the allies of Anzu's champion in... they're calling Karabor Cloudfort, prophet. I cannot convince them otherwise."

Velen hummed. "And the Stonemaul?"

"Imperator Modok has taken them under his banner, as you predicted, prophet." Akama replied. "Hakmuud transmitted his report just this morning. The Imperator is celebrating the event by chaining a Gron. It seemed to suitably impress the troops." The Arcforged leader hesitated. "You're certain you don't want him assassinated?"

Velen nodded. "His fate is Thurm's. The two of them will fight for the soul of the Gorian people." He shut down his device, placing it in a pocket, cleverly hidden in the numerous layers and folds of his robe. "Now, let's go meet our guests. I want to lift off by nightfall. Any later would risk disaster, any earlier we will be ill prepared."

Nodding solemnly, the two of them left the terrace.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Seven weeks ago:

Spellbreaker Modok giggled to himself as he felt the teleportation spell rip him from the Thief's ship. _He had the stone_. One of them at least. One of three artifacts of sacred importance to the Gorian People. The other two were lost, he knew, just as his brothers aboard the ship were lost to the Thief's glutinous fury. He had seen it in those final moments. The other team had been slaughtered with ease and the three he had left behind would stand no chance. For all that Thurm was a runt and a heretic, no Ogre in highmaul short of the Imperators Council would dare call the cruel brutal pariah an incompetent.

Not to his face.

But where the opportunistic coward had left the Imperator to die and his brothers to be enslaved, Modok would plant himself firmly as their savior. The Usurper had not recovered these stone! Cho'Gall did not deserve them! Modok was different! He would not abandon the Gorduni as Thurm had nor enslave them as Cho'Gall intended, he would follow millennia of grand ogre tradition and free his people with the might of the Arcane!

And a quite sensible withdrawal. Digression was, after all, the better part of Valor.

Landing well away from the column of Twilights Hammer, Bladefist and Bleeding Hollow, Modok checked that Cho'gall was thoroughly distracted by his attack on the Thief's ship before blinking into the center of the Gorduni captives. Then, with the autistic glory of the idiot savant, he quickly carved a mass teleportation rune into the land around him, selected the 'worthy' and vanished.

Now:

Imperator Modok smiled broadly from the platform of his palanquin. Opening his mouth, he waited patiently as a pair of chained females fed him fruits and made a gesture with his fingers. The ground shook under the explosive force of his spell and the Gron he'd been hunting moaned as the fires were put out by an avalanche of snow. Life was good in the Bladespire mountains. After all, it was good to be the king.

Modok accepted another fruit and smirked through his chewing as arcane energy bubbled and sparkled through his mouth. One of his concubines had just tried to poison him. He turned his gaze on her and she shrank back as he smiled rather than coughing up blood. To other races, ogre women were difficult to distinguish from the men, but once you knew the trick it was simple. The women wore a trio of shields, one on either breast(deflated unless nursing), and the other on their stomach. Men, unless they wore full plate, kept bare chests, to show off their musculature and affluent stomachs.

Another difference was in the position they held in society.

Ogre women were just as large as the men, just as strong and twice as mean, so by and large, they took no shit from anyone and tried to get into positions of command whenever possible. But they also understood their value and where it came from. To compete in the savage brutality of Draenor, the empire needed children. Lots and lots of children. And so they had them. Every year; until they couldn't. But which men got to HAVE those children varied. An ogre could work his entire life just for one night of fun, because in order to get his turn, he had to provide a years worth of food, money and gifts. In advance. For her _and_ all of her other kids. At least up until the sons matured, and then her sons were expected to provide the upkeep for his siblings, another limiting factor in being able to afford a mate.

This, incidentally, was why Modok liked the Bladespire. They were progressive. Rebels. Decades ago, a group of frustrated young men had decided that if they couldn't buy access, then they would steal women from the orcs. Frostwolf, Thunderlord, Whiteclaw, Rageroar, Laughing skull; never more than would be lost in your average caravan raid. And with these women were born the Mok'nathal; or "the sons of Mok", the leader of the movement. Of course, the then Imperator Kelgrok had found out about it. Hard to keep that sort of things secret. But rather than banish the boys for fouling themselves with a lesser race, he encouraged them to take more women and used cruel mind magics to ensure the childrens loyalty. With the abundance of women, the women of Bladespire lost much of their power. The boys just wanted families, but their Imperator wanted conquest.

Well, Modok wanted conquest too. But he had a different plan. He would enslave the Gron. And the Ogron. And the Orcs. Under his arcane might the Mok'nathal would be reborn and the land reshaped so that Frostfire ridge could support a truly reborn Gorian Empire.

One where Modok reigned supreme.

He and his chosen subordinates would have all of the ogre women, those of his people who were little more than meat would get Orgron and orcs, and the Gron would be their military might.

The cries of the Gron as his men dug it out of the snow and clamped enchanted truesteel manacles on it made Modok's heart tingle. If he ever saw the Traitor again, he'd really have to thank him. None of this would have been possible without Thurm. Not only had he provided the means, Modok had watched as the Runemaster banished the fetid horde to the abyss of stars.

Modok ate another fruit and sighed. Life was good.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Three weeks ago:

Ner'zhul stepped out of the portal into Auchindoun, deep in thought. The spirits... could be commanded. And his destiny was... _had been_... to command them. _'The souls of two worlds'_ the abomination had told him _'until the heroes come to defeat you'_.

That was interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Looking up into the ruined structure he could perceive spirits of the Draenei milling around in great billowing swarms. Confusion, terror and agony were their primary emotions though there was a fair undercurrent of grief nearly a decade deep. This place had once been as sacred to the queer blue skinned invaders as Osho'gun was to his own people, and had been so for centuries.

It galled him to think that the abomination had stolen the white mountain.

How does one even perform such a feat? Ner'zhul had heard stories of the fall of Goria, how the landscape had writhed like a serpent, or plagued maggots under flesh when the orcs had tried to enslave the furies at the Throne of Elements. Had seen the land scream and twist during the elemental upheaval he now knew to be Gul'dan's fault. But to... just... _remove a mountain. For fun_. He shuddered to think of ogres wielding such power deliberately.

If nothing else, it was good motivation to realize the outsider monstrosities promise. Even now, in the temple, the creature was arming itself, growing further in power. If his people were to survive, they would need to step up. ...HE would need to step up.

Lifting his hand, he pointed it at one of the spirits and reached out with his soul. Tongues of foul chaos shivered as they tried to crawl up his arm and join in the working, but with a titanic effort of will, he suppressed them. The Fel could help him, he was certain of it, but corruption was not his purpose. Not now. Never... never again. Invisible to the naked eye, soft teal light streamed out of his palm and formed a lasso around the nearest Draenei spirit and the two of them fell into his soul space.

Ner'zhul ignored the flaying of self as he climbed the golden bridge to meet the spirits on their own terms. His target was... Kol'uun. A builder among his people. A toymaker, really. He had died to the Bladewind massacre at the beginning of the war, one of the first sacrificed by the tribe to appease the elements. He didn't know what had happened later in the war, or that there had even been one, his time around the celestial crystal the Draenai buried in this place was one of darkness, not light, and the spirit was mostly confused. Why was an orc talking to him, and not his family. He was supposed to be with his ancestors, not a primitive.

Ner'zhul mediated for hours, trying to reason with the soul, coerce it, direct it to his whim, but it seemed this would not work. It was a battle of wills even to keep him in place and continue their talk, but the old shaman would not be deterred. In Gul'var they bound the ancestors to the defense of the land, this would be the same. Just... less cordial.

Eventually, he was able to force the spirit into its own bones, forming a skeletal servant. It wasn't much, but it was a start. He ordered it first to capture him some food, and set about searching for a spirit of flame with which to cook it.

The elemental spirit proved much easier to subjugate, submitting to him almost eagerly in exchange for Ner'zhul purging it for fel corruption. THAT had been difficult, but eventually he'd managed to drain the emerald taint out of the spirit and into himself the same way he'd seen Gul'dan do as punishment for failure.

After the food came, it was cooked, consumed and then Ner'zhul continued to experiment.

Now:

Ner'hul watched with grim satisfaction as the construction proceeded. Lines of skeletons gathered and arranged pieces of sarcophagi while spirits of earth and fire fused them back together. Spirits of wind, fire and earth shifted rubble and performed the same task on a larger scale, recreating hallways, mausoleums and antechambers of the grand necropolis.

It was easier to work with the spirits of stone, as they practically begged him to give them form. Their memories of how they were before the explosion were still cemented in their minds and living as a state of rubble was new and disturbing to them. The spirits of wind had been the hardest, but their melancholy as they raced over the brutalized landscape had been enough of an in for him to bend them to his purposes. The spirits of fire traded their wills only for purity, but were still apt to abandon him if he had nothing to burn, so he had to keep them constantly busy or else risk losing a great deal of momentum.

And beside him burned an emerald skull.

Achunai Nyami had been instrumental in Ner'zhul's rise to power in the crypts. The soul binder had been both the Draenai's line of defense against the restless dead, and primary shaman bringing them back to speak with their living relatives for almost a thousand years, and as such had a great deal of wisdom to offer him. Unfortunately she was also the strongest will he had encountered among the dead. His first encounter with her had very nearly killed him, and in desperation, he had turned back to the fel, something he had sworn again and again never to do. This hadn't been all bad, and had in fact been quite the boon, as it allowed him to offload the fel corruption he'd been taking unto himself for the service of the spirits of the land.

It also had the added effect of making the soulbinder more willing to work with him, even as her power grew enough to slip the bonds he had placed on her.

On his own, by sheer force of will, Ner'zhul could dominate between one and seven souls depending on their own wills or two dozen elemental spirits. With the soul-binder there to act as his native ally, spell advisor and cruel informant, he was capable of directing nearly two hundred draenei souls at once; though his elemental cadre remained the same. This strained the number of connections he could maintain without tearing his own soul apart, else he suspected he could have held more, but this made coordinating them largely dependent on their willingness to do what he told them, or be browbeaten into doing so.

Thankfully, all of the spirits agreed that restoring Auchindoun to its proper glory and storing the bones and souls of the dead in their designated sarcophagi to be a task worth following. Most of the traitorous lazy weasels would break themselves free of his control once their own tomb was restored, but he suffered their insolence with grace. There were always more where those came from and he was slowly building up a loyal rank of spirits who both aided him in extending his control and agreed to work with him at least as far as erasing the Path of Glory in Tannan. Several even vowed eternal servitude to him, if he would agree to restore the settlements lost in the war and take over the post of Achunai, leading the souls and bones of the fallen to this place of peace.

As he came out of command meditation and his perspective tightened from a large portion of the ruins to his own body, Ner'zhul sighed in pleasure at the lightness his work seemed to lend to his own guilty soul.

It was all coming together.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Prophet Zul watched with amusement as the interloper escaped the direct presence of Hir'eek and augers of almost a dozen major Loa and nearly twice that minor Loa. He had foreseen this event almost an hour before, but it was no less impressive to witness in the moment. Of the many Loa present only Hakkar the Soulflayer, blood god of the zanchuli, patron of Zul'Nazman and current master of Zul'Gurub's true leaders deigned to interfere aiding Thurm Runemaster. And what aid it was. Directing Gedwa to reinforce Mando'fon and make a scene while the Lever of Fate made his escape was particularly inspired, he thought.

Zul knew why the Loa had done it. G'huun had begun to co-opt Hakkar's worshipers in Nazmir and the feathered serpent knew that as soon as the cataclysm struck the balance of power would shift rapidly out of his control. The city of Zul'nazman would fall in the earthquakes and the three titanic seals would crack. Those who survived would quickly abandon Hakkar for the more potent and maddening power of the shadow maggot and Hakkar wanted to be prepared. So, he had reached out to Jin'do at the end of the last war with Stormwind and began setting the stage for his manifestation elsewhere. Gedwa was supposed to go to the Amani in Jintha'alor and corrupt Yeh'kinya, priestess Kol'gara Hexx and construct the Altar of Zul so that the Champions of Azeroth would collect his egg and begin the events heralding Hakkar's return.

But Thurm had co-opted the blood troll as he began said mission and changed the future. The cloud snake god had seen this opportunity to regain control, and perhaps even accelerate the timetable. With enough cards reshuffled, maybe even prevent the events of the blood war.

Zul himself would have been instrumental in that war, but on G'huun's side rather than Hakkar's.

Now though..? Zul looked down at the portal stones in his hands and grinned. It was indeed time to change allegiances. The runemaster and his court of stars had proven that he had "backed the wrong horse" as it were, and it was time for plans to change.

As the Flying Dutchman's aftershock dissipated across the heavens Zul began gathering his party.

"Jin'do, I be needin ya." The prophet spoke quietly into the Gurubi leaders ear.

The man grunted "Ya be willin ta tell me why dat be way nah?" He asked a scowl on his face.

"To accelerate Hakkar's return." The prophet replied, making the Hex king's eyes widen.

"It be don way?" He asked, surprised. "Em nah?"

Zul nodded. "Yes, Thurm was meant to come. The defeat of Mando'kir by his son and the blood priest followed by Thurm's escape will motivate the tribes to follow ya. And now, I be needin ya pets. Des stones no be deliverin demselves an de fastest way be a bit... guarded."

The Hex lord nodded seriously and led the blind man quickly away from the crowd. Ten minutes of running through back alleys later and they emerged into a clearing full of feathered serpents. The lay basking in sun rays, flying around in a great cyclone and coiled around the arms and necks of their handlers as they were fed small morsels of recently butchered human.

"How many ya need, tap ah de tap?" Jin'do asked.

"Five, large enough to ride. Grant dem Hakkar's blessing of insidious whispers. Dis be a stealth mission against dragons."

The gathered Hakkari's eyes bulged at the Prophets pronouncement, but set about their tasks with alacrity.

"You intend to deliver them yourself, prophet?" Jin'do asked, cautiously.

Zul nodded. "I shall lead them through the dreamway at brightgrove and back. Huli'jin shall take his stone through the ashenvale portal and fly north to Darkshore, bringing the Shadow tusk into the fold for the first time since the Kith'ix expansion. Kil'wog will exit through Androsil to connect the Drakkari. He will need a gift for Mallak de frost king, send for one while we prepare." Jin'do did so and Zul continued. "Xi'balba'a will exit through Seradane and deliver his stone the amani at Jintha'alor. Finally, Hiss'ak will leave through Feralas and journey south to Zul'Farrak. It be pity de connections on Kalimdor will take so long, but dey will be fasta dan me own trip home. All portals will open at da same time an we shall begin rebuilding de empiah."

Jin'do looked uncertain however. "Da green dragons an elf Loa will notice. Hakkar's song in dere home? Dem be wack."

Zul looked through Jin'do's eyes to the shadow that lurked behind the trolls soul. "De soul flayer provide. Him know de stakes, yah?"

The shadow of the feathered serpent rose over the Hex King's shoulders and hissed. There were no words this time, but both of them knew Hakkar had taken the challenge.


End file.
